Deleted
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Apr 25, 2024 14:56:45 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2019 13:11:35 GMT
This is why America is f#($ed. "The deficits grow like this: Amazon, the online marketplace, made nearly $11 billion last year and instead of paying the current, low 21 percent corporate tax rate on that income, it demanded that taxpayers give it $129 million. Which they did. It wasn’t a rebate since Amazon paid no taxes. It was a big fat, gift withdrawn involuntarily from workers’ pockets, wrapped in a fuzzy, flocked Amazon smiley bag, and deposited directly into corporate coffers. This is perverse wealth transfer, from the poor and middle class to the rich and corporations." Instead of billionaires and billion-dollar corps paying their fair share to help with law enforcement, mental health, schools, roads, etc., the low-wage and mid-wage earners PAY THEM! "Americans overwhelmingly support repairing the nation’s crumbling roads, bridges, airports and water lines, using U.S.-made products and union workers. In 2017, the American Society of Civil Engineers gave the nation’s infrastructure a D grade and estimated that the United States must spend $4.5 trillion by 2025 to upgrade the structures on which American commerce depends. President Donald Trump and majorities in Congress are all for infrastructure improvements too. But it never happens. And the reason is money. There is no money to do it when so many U.S. corporations use this infrastructure to make boatloads of money, pay no taxes and demand the government give them workers’ tax dollars" "Another ill effect is that government debt balloons. The U.S. Treasury Department reported that the deficit rose $113 billion or 17 percent in the first year of the tax cuts, the largest one-year increase since 2009, which was during the worst of the Great Recession. That black hole is projected to occur every year the tax cuts remain in effect. Republicans take those deficit figures – deficits they created by cutting taxes – and use them to demand offsetting spending cuts – that is cuts to Social Security, cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, cuts to food stamps and school lunch programs, cuts to programs that are precious to workers and the poor." In the 50's corporate tax as a % of tax revs was in the low 30%. And for 2018 it was 7%. Guess who picks up the slack?! Or gets cuts to programs?! YEP - low-wage and mid-wage AMERICANS. www.rawstory.com/2019/04/amazon-56-corporations-took-tax-dollars/OMB Tax history. www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/hist02z1-fy2020.xlsx
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pyccku
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,817
Jun 27, 2014 23:12:07 GMT
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Post by pyccku on Apr 20, 2019 13:28:10 GMT
The rich have managed to bamboozle the middle and working class white people (mostly rural) into believing that somehow the wealthy of this country have more in common with them than they have with the minorities. They've sold them the idea that 'you work hard, eventually you'll be one of us - and won't you be glad you got these tax breaks?' - and they bought it, hook, line and sinker.
The reality is that poor, working and middle class white people have much in common with black and latino poor, working and middle class people. The same struggles, the same values, the same issues on a daily basis. But they've been told that "those" people aren't as good as the white people - the "real Americans." Somehow the minorities don't work as hard, or don't care about their families as much, or just aren't as deserving as the white folks. So pass the corporate tax breaks, the corporate welfare, the 1% loopholes - because YOU, Mr. white small farmer with a community college education - YOU are going to someday be in the same economic class as the CEO of Super Big Company INC, and you'll be glad when it's your turn to reap those benefits!
Except it doesn't work that way. They'll still be poor/working/middle class all their lives. They're all "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" who have been told to oppose the super-scary DEATH TAX because what will their kids inherit if the government takes it all, just to give it to some undeserving welfare queen? Of course, their inheritance won't be anywhere near the threshold for that tax, but they don't know that.
And anything that we could use tax dollars for to actually improve the lives of our citizens here at home - better schools, higher education, better public transportation, better healthcare, improvements to roads, repairs to bridges etc. - that money instead works its way back up the food chain, into the pockets of corporations and the defense contractors. Because there is ALWAYS money for wars.
If the majority of the people in the US ever realized that the divisions by race are exaggerated but the divisions by class are underappreciated, you could see real change. But so long as the rich ones are able to convince the not-rich ones that they are being held back by the not-rich, not-white ones, it will continue.
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Post by LavenderLayoutLady on Apr 20, 2019 13:33:33 GMT
That just so infuriating.
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Post by LavenderLayoutLady on Apr 20, 2019 13:36:20 GMT
The rich have managed to bamboozle the middle and working class white people (mostly rural) into believing that somehow the wealthy of this country have more in common with them than they have with the minorities. They've sold them the idea that 'you work hard, eventually you'll be one of us - and won't you be glad you got these tax breaks?' - and they bought it, hook, line and sinker. The reality is that poor, working and middle class white people have much in common with black and latino poor, working and middle class people. The same struggles, the same values, the same issues on a daily basis. But they've been told that "those" people aren't as good as the white people - the "real Americans." Somehow the minorities don't work as hard, or don't care about their families as much, or just aren't as deserving as the white folks. So pass the corporate tax breaks, the corporate welfare, the 1% loopholes - because YOU, Mr. white small farmer with a community college education - YOU are going to someday be in the same economic class as the CEO of Super Big Company INC, and you'll be glad when it's your turn to reap those benefits! Except it doesn't work that way. They'll still be poor/working/middle class all their lives. They're all "temporarily embarrassed millionaires" who have been told to oppose the super-scary DEATH TAX because what will their kids inherit if the government takes it all, just to give it to some undeserving welfare queen? Of course, their inheritance won't be anywhere near the threshold for that tax, but they don't know that. And anything that we could use tax dollars for to actually improve the lives of our citizens here at home - better schools, higher education, better public transportation, better healthcare, improvements to roads, repairs to bridges etc. - that money instead works its way back up the food chain, into the pockets of corporations and the defense contractors. Because there is ALWAYS money for wars. If the majority of the people in the US ever realized that the divisions by race are exaggerated but the divisions by class are underappreciated, you could see real change. But so long as the rich ones are able to convince the not-rich ones that they are being held back by the not-rich, not-white ones, it will continue. So very well said.
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Post by mcjunkin on Apr 20, 2019 14:21:33 GMT
Amazon and other big corps are using the tax laws as they are written, or taking advantage of the breaks offered by different states. Sadly, even if the laws change and the corps be come tax liable, that "cost" will only be passed on to the consumer. They will not absorb and take the hit on profit margins.
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LeaP
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,939
Location: Los Angeles, CA where 405 meets 101
Jun 26, 2014 23:17:22 GMT
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Post by LeaP on Apr 20, 2019 14:29:50 GMT
Agree. Also, did you know that you are required to complete a FAFSA (financial aid for college) until your child is 24? This little tidbit that I just learned this year leads me to believe that most everything is geared to extracting money from the middle class.
Mind you how is a country where the average salary is $56,516 supposed to afford schools that cost between $10,000 - $75,000?
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Post by Darcy Collins on Apr 20, 2019 14:32:34 GMT
Agree. Also, did you know that you are required to complete a FAFSA (financial aid for college) until your child is 24? This little tidbit that I just learned this year leads me to believe that most everything is geared to extracting money from the middle class. Mind you how is a country where the average salary is $56,516 supposed to afford schools that cost between $10,000 - $75,000? I'm not following you - how is filing FAFSA extracting money from you? And you're not required to complete a FAFSA at all. You're filing it to RECEIVE money. If you don't want to receive any, don't file it.
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Just T
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,541
Jun 26, 2014 1:20:09 GMT
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Post by Just T on Apr 20, 2019 14:35:11 GMT
Agree. Also, did you know that you are required to complete a FAFSA (financial aid for college) until your child is 24? This little tidbit that I just learned this year leads me to believe that most everything is geared to extracting money from the middle class. Mind you how is a country where the average salary is $56,516 supposed to afford schools that cost between $10,000 - $75,000? I'm not following you - how is filing FAFSA extracting money from you? And you're not required to complete a FAFSA at all. You're filing it to RECEIVE money. If you don't want to receive any, don't file it. I think it's annoying because if your child is 24, on their own, applying for financial aid for college, the parents income is still taken into consideration. Which just seems wrong to me. If the child is an adult, on their own, only their income should be taken into consideration in my opinion.
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quiltedbrain
Full Member
Posts: 429
Jun 26, 2014 3:34:53 GMT
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Post by quiltedbrain on Apr 20, 2019 14:36:46 GMT
Amazon and other big corps are using the tax laws as they are written, or taking advantage of the breaks offered by different states. Sadly, even if the laws change and the corps be come tax liable, that "cost" will only be passed on to the consumer. They will not absorb and take the hit on profit margins. Sigh. That’s what the rich folk benefiting from the current state of affairs would have you believe. Do just a small bit of research and you’ll see that this concept is not being borne out by research. Edit to add: I apologize mcjunkin, I was wrong on this point. See post below. I’m so, so tired of this kind of fatalistic thinking by so many Americans. You know what would actually make us great again??? Remembering that we have a government for, by, and of the people and we do have the ability (responsibility) to fix the hard problems. Put your money where your mouth is, America, and do the work to get your government back under control.
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Post by Merge on Apr 20, 2019 14:42:09 GMT
Amazon and other big corps are using the tax laws as they are written, or taking advantage of the breaks offered by different states. Sadly, even if the laws change and the corps be come tax liable, that "cost" will only be passed on to the consumer. They will not absorb and take the hit on profit margins. Sigh. That’s what the rich folk benefiting from the current state of affairs would have you believe. Do just a small bit of research and you’ll see that this concept is not being borne out by research. I’m so, so tired of this kind of fatalistic thinking by so many Americans. You know what would actually make us great again??? Remembering that we have a government for, by, and of the people and we do have the ability (responsibility) to fix the hard problems. Put your money where your mouth is, America, and do the work to get your government back under control. I hear the argument that corporations will pass the higher costs on to consumers, or that they will find ways to move business out of state or offshore, frequently here in Texas. Can you link me to some credible information that shows otherwise? I'd like to learn more.
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Post by Darcy Collins on Apr 20, 2019 14:45:49 GMT
I'm not following you - how is filing FAFSA extracting money from you? And you're not required to complete a FAFSA at all. You're filing it to RECEIVE money. If you don't want to receive any, don't file it. I think it's annoying because if your child is 24, on their own, applying for financial aid for college, the parents income is still taken into consideration. Which just seems wrong to me. If the child is an adult, on their own, only their income should be taken into consideration in my opinion. gotcha! I can certainly understand that aspect and how long a parent is supposed to considered for college funding.
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Post by guzismom on Apr 20, 2019 14:59:41 GMT
Amazon and other big corps are using the tax laws as they are written, or taking advantage of the breaks offered by different states. Sadly, even if the laws change and the corps be come tax liable, that "cost" will only be passed on to the consumer. They will not absorb and take the hit on profit margins. That may (or may not) be so; but at least then we have the CHOICE of whether or not to pay the $$$. Believe me, if my amazon purchases increase by 30% (the figure stated as the tax rate of corps in the 1950s), I will reconsider whether to purchase them.
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Post by Merge on Apr 20, 2019 15:39:02 GMT
I think it's annoying because if your child is 24, on their own, applying for financial aid for college, the parents income is still taken into consideration. Which just seems wrong to me. If the child is an adult, on their own, only their income should be taken into consideration in my opinion. gotcha! I can certainly understand that aspect and how long a parent is supposed to considered for college funding. When I was 22 I was able to become emancipated so my parents' income wasn't factored in to my financial aid for grad school. I gather that's not a thing any more? They had to take me off their taxes as a dependent and there was some other evidence we had to show as well.
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LeaP
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,939
Location: Los Angeles, CA where 405 meets 101
Jun 26, 2014 23:17:22 GMT
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Post by LeaP on Apr 20, 2019 15:40:12 GMT
I'm not following you - how is filing FAFSA extracting money from you? And you're not required to complete a FAFSA at all. You're filing it to RECEIVE money. If you don't want to receive any, don't file it. I think it's annoying because if your child is 24, on their own, applying for financial aid for college, the parents income is still taken into consideration. Which just seems wrong to me. If the child is an adult, on their own, only their income should be taken into consideration in my opinion. Why should they consider my income for my kid's grad school? 18 ok, 21 maybe, 24...WHAT?! I want my kid to be independent. Also, why has the price of school outpaced inflation?
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samantha25
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,891
Jun 27, 2014 19:06:19 GMT
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Post by samantha25 on Apr 20, 2019 15:54:34 GMT
I think it's annoying because if your child is 24, on their own, applying for financial aid for college, the parents income is still taken into consideration. Which just seems wrong to me. If the child is an adult, on their own, only their income should be taken into consideration in my opinion. Why should they consider my income for my kid's grad school? 18 ok, 21 maybe, 24...WHAT?! I want my kid to be independent. Also, why has the price of school outpaced inflation? In the 1990s, I received Pell grants when I was not declared a dependent on my parents ' income tax for two years. Not sure if this rule has changed, but if your claiming your child as a dependent then your income is considered for fasa.
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quiltedbrain
Full Member
Posts: 429
Jun 26, 2014 3:34:53 GMT
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Post by quiltedbrain on Apr 20, 2019 15:57:24 GMT
Sigh. That’s what the rich folk benefiting from the current state of affairs would have you believe. Do just a small bit of research and you’ll see that this concept is not being borne out by research. I’m so, so tired of this kind of fatalistic thinking by so many Americans. You know what would actually make us great again??? Remembering that we have a government for, by, and of the people and we do have the ability (responsibility) to fix the hard problems. Put your money where your mouth is, America, and do the work to get your government back under control. I hear the argument that corporations will pass the higher costs on to consumers, or that they will find ways to move business out of state or offshore, frequently here in Texas. Can you link me to some credible information that shows otherwise? I'd like to learn more. Ok, to start...I wandered on to 2Peas before I had my morning coffee and conflated the issue of corporate taxes and raising wages when I read the statement about costs being passed on to consumers. I was thinking about living wage research when I responded, definitely my bad there, but I did go looking for what's out there about corporate taxes and consumer prices. Spoiler alert--there's not much. Here's some of what I did find: ProCon.org gives a summary of 7 points (with links) for each side of the issue relating to corporate tax rates and job creation.
Corporate taxes don't impact consumer prices.(Union sponsored study without a date , but I found their methods interesting as they could be easily replicated by anyone with a computer.) "Corporate Tax Cuts Increase Income Inequality"-Harvard working paper from 2018.So, I withdraw my statement that you can do just a small amount of research to refute mcjunkin's statement as my brief search shows little actual research on the issue of federal corporate tax rates and their effect on consumer prices. I stand by my assertion that thinking we can't fight corporate control is fatalistic thinking. Corporate taxes are at a historically low level and corporate profits are very high, yet our infrastructure is crumbling. When did we build that infrastructure? When corporate tax rates were high. I've never heard of consumer costs being out of control during those periods of high corporate tax rates. History doesn't support that higher tax rates would bring about devastation and increasing tax rates would solve a lot of quality of life issues for EVERYONE--to me the path forward seems clear.
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lindas
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,146
Jun 26, 2014 5:46:37 GMT
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Post by lindas on Apr 20, 2019 16:02:29 GMT
I think it's annoying because if your child is 24, on their own, applying for financial aid for college, the parents income is still taken into consideration. Which just seems wrong to me. If the child is an adult, on their own, only their income should be taken into consideration in my opinion. Why should they consider my income for my kid's grad school? 18 ok, 21 maybe, 24...WHAT?! I want my kid to be independent. Also, why has the price of school outpaced inflation? This article gives a brief outline of why the cost of college has increased so rapidly. link
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Apr 25, 2024 14:56:45 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2019 17:06:01 GMT
I think it's annoying because if your child is 24, on their own, applying for financial aid for college, the parents income is still taken into consideration. Which just seems wrong to me. If the child is an adult, on their own, only their income should be taken into consideration in my opinion. Why should they consider my income for my kid's grad school? 18 ok, 21 maybe, 24...WHAT?! I want my kid to be independent. Also, why has the price of school outpaced inflation? Cuz rich people buy the laws to benefit rich people.
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pyccku
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,817
Jun 27, 2014 23:12:07 GMT
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Post by pyccku on Apr 20, 2019 17:26:07 GMT
I hear the argument that corporations will pass the higher costs on to consumers, or that they will find ways to move business out of state or offshore, frequently here in Texas. The tax laws need to be changed. Want to do business in the US? You'll pay your fair share of taxes to do so, period. Does anyone really think that -$129 million is the fair share of taxes for Amazon? Sure, they could move offshore. And be barred from doing business within the US. They could move to a different state. They could pass the higher costs on to customers - and customers will choose where to do business. If corporation A charges 6% tax and corporation B charges 6% tax, what difference will it make to the consumer - both companies will be charging tax because it's the legal way to do business. I have a small business in AZ. I do 100% of my sales online, and only have to pay sales tax to customers in AZ. Every 3 months I file my taxes, paying a piddly little $15 or so each time. That's just the cost of doing business here in AZ. I also have to have a business license ($80 per year). Should I be looking for loopholes? My small business that does way less more business than Amazon pays much more in taxes than Amazon does, even if it's only %60 per year. The US is a big market. Companies will have to decide if they wish to have access to the market. If the burden of paying taxes is too much, perhaps they should focus on other countries with more lucrative markets.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Apr 25, 2024 14:56:45 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2019 18:11:20 GMT
Add these companies to your list br] Walmart Target Cost-co
Hospitals ( the chain ones)
Boeing
Ford GMC Chrysler Honda
So many more
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Apr 20, 2019 18:46:27 GMT
Until the tax laws are changed nothing will change!
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Post by Really Red on Apr 20, 2019 18:53:41 GMT
Have you listened to Andrew Yang and his thoughts on Universal Basic Income? I was totally scoffy (scoffy is like disbelievy), but his 3-minute speech is very, very interesting on how to help Americans. Here it is It's worth 3 minutes of your time to listen. He is well-spoken and talks about Amazon. I am very impressed. I know that countries like Switzerland, who do NOT have UBI, but do pay their workers living wages, do extremely well. We have the resources to do the same and it's embarrassing that not only are people starving in the US, people are living horrendously because medical costs overwhelm them. It's shameful.
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pyccku
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,817
Jun 27, 2014 23:12:07 GMT
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Post by pyccku on Apr 20, 2019 19:03:09 GMT
UBI is going to become a necessity, unless we want a huge underclass of people with no food, no shelter, no possessions. As AI and robotics develop, many of the jobs that people have done in the past will be taken over by computers and robots. When the factory that used to hire 10,000 employees to run the assembly line now only needs 100 employees to program and maintain the robots, what do the other 9900 do? Multiply that by thousands of factories and jobs and you see that quickly, there will be people who simply can't find work because there is no work. Sure, there will still be jobs that have to be done manually - but if there are 1000 of those jobs and 60,000 people who need jobs - then what?
When people have no food or shelter and no way to get them, things will get ugly very fast. And without people to buy whatever products are being produced, where will the businesses make their money?
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Apr 25, 2024 14:56:45 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Apr 20, 2019 20:27:49 GMT
UBI is going to become a necessity, unless we want a huge underclass of people with no food, no shelter, no possessions. As AI and robotics develop, many of the jobs that people have done in the past will be taken over by computers and robots. When the factory that used to hire 10,000 employees to run the assembly line now only needs 100 employees to program and maintain the robots, what do the other 9900 do? Multiply that by thousands of factories and jobs and you see that quickly, there will be people who simply can't find work because there is no work. Sure, there will still be jobs that have to be done manually - but if there are 1000 of those jobs and 60,000 people who need jobs - then what? When people have no food or shelter and no way to get them, things will get ugly very fast. And without people to buy whatever products are being produced, where will the businesses make their money? I grew up so grateful that I didn't live in a corrupt republic w/a few very rich people (carted around by armed guards in armed cars living behind armed gates) and then everybody else scraping bottom. I never wanted to live that way. I don't want my kids to live that way. But not us. We had a thriving middle class, we had safety nets, we had help for the elderly. Seems like some in our country will not be happy until we are our own corrupt republic w/a very few rich people and then everybody else scraping bottom. It will come unless we stop it. ESPECIALLY w/the coming wave of automation in the next 3 decades.
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pyccku
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 2,817
Jun 27, 2014 23:12:07 GMT
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Post by pyccku on Apr 20, 2019 21:17:56 GMT
Seems like some in our country will not be happy until we are our own corrupt republic w/a very few rich people and then everybody else scraping bottom. It will come unless we stop it. ESPECIALLY w/the coming wave of automation in the next 3 decades. Because the corporate overlords have worked very hard to convince middle class Americans that it is only right for their tax dollars to go towards subsidies for the rich. It's OK for the CEO to make 1000 times the salary of an employee - because after all, he's 1000 times smarter and works 1000 times harder! It's only right for him to have 5 homes and 3 yachts while the regular workers struggle to pay the rent and put food on the table because...well, just because! It's reminiscent of the feudal era and divine right - you're poor because that's the way it's supposed to be! That guy is rich because that's the way it's supposed to be! If God had wanted you to be rich and him to be poor, that's how it would be - but it's not, so shut up and be thankful for your tiny plot of land and an extra turnip because it's Christmas. We tell ourselves that this is "the American dream" - that if you work hard and are a little ambitious, you too will have this amazing success! It completely overlooks the fact that people who are born poor tend to stay that way unless they are lucky to be in the right place at the right time, and people who are born rich tend to stay that way - even if they're stupid and incompetent.
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Post by pierkiss on Apr 20, 2019 23:25:42 GMT
gotcha! I can certainly understand that aspect and how long a parent is supposed to considered for college funding. When I was 22 I was able to become emancipated so my parents' income wasn't factored in to my financial aid for grad school. I gather that's not a thing any more? They had to take me off their taxes as a dependent and there was some other evidence we had to show as well. I did the same thing in grad school. My program gave me a tuition waiver and a stipend, but I could no longer be declared on my parents taxes. Dad wasn’t thrilled but he knew that day was coming anyway. That was in 2004.
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Post by gryroagain on Apr 21, 2019 2:04:23 GMT
I can’t quote because old iPad, but Andrew Yang is fascinating. Go look at some of his ideas.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Apr 25, 2024 14:56:45 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2019 5:47:58 GMT
This is an interesting article in The Press Democrat.
“ Silicon Valley leaders, politicians among those asking whether capitalism will survive“
“PALO ALTO — A perfect California day. The sun was shining, a gentle breeze was blowing and, at a Silicon Valley coffee shop, Rep. Ro Khanna was sitting across from one of his many billionaire constituents discussing an uncomfortable subject: the growing unpopularity of billionaires and their giant tech companies.
“There’s some more humility out here,” Khanna, D-Santa Clara, said.
The billionaire on the other side of the table let out a nervous laugh. Chris Larsen was on his third startup and well on his way to being one of the wealthiest people in the valley, if not the world.
“Realizing people hate your guts has some value,” he joked.
For decades, Democrats and Republicans have hailed America’s business elite, especially in Silicon Valley, as the country’s salvation. The government might be gridlocked, the electorate angry and divided, but America’s innovators seemed to promise a relatively pain-free way out of the mess. Their companies produced an endless series of products that kept the U.S. economy churning and its gross domestic product climbing. Their philanthropic efforts were aimed at fixing some of the country’s most vexing problems. Government’s role was to stay out of the way.
Now that consensus is shattering. For the first time in decades, capitalism’s future is a subject of debate among presidential hopefuls and a source of growing angst for America’s business elite. In places such as Silicon Valley, the slopes of Davos, Switzerland, and the halls of Harvard Business School, there is a sense that the kind of capitalism that once made America an economic envy is responsible for the growing inequality and anger that is tearing the country apart.
On a quiet weekday at a strip-mall coffee shop, the conversation between Khanna and Larsen turned to what went so wrong.
Americans still loved technology, Khanna said, but too many of them felt locked out of the country’s economic future and were looking for someone to blame.
“What happened to us?” he imagined people in these left-behind places asking.
Part of Khanna’s solution was to sign on as co-chairman of the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vermont, the democratic socialist who rose to the national stage by railing against “the handful of billionaires” who “control the economic and political life of this nation,” and who disproportionately live in Khanna’s district.
The other part of Khanna’s solution was to do what he was doing now, talking to billionaire tech executives like Larsen who worried that the current path for both capitalism and Silicon Valley was unsustainable. Boosted by a cryptocurrency spike last year, Larsen’s net worth had briefly hit $59 billion, making him the fifth-richest person in the world before the currency’s value fell.
Without an intervention, he worried that wealth would continue to pile up in Silicon Valley and anger in the country would continue to grow.
“It seems like every company in the world has to be here,” Larsen said. “It’s just painfully obvious that the blob is getting bigger.”
At some point, Larsen and Khanna worried, something was going to break.
The 2008 financial crisis may have revealed the weaknesses of American capitalism. But it was Donald Trump’s election and the pent-up anger it exposed that left America’s billionaire class fearful for capitalism’s future.
Elected at time of transition
Khanna was elected in 2016, just as the anxiety started to spread. In Europe, far-right nationalist parties were gaining ground. Closer to home, socialists and Trump-inspired nationalists were winning state and congressional elections.
Conversations of the sort that Khanna was having with Larsen were now taking place in some of capitalism’s most rarefied circles including Harvard Business School, where last fall Seth Klarman, a highly influential billionaire investor, delivered what he described as a “plaintive wail” to the business community to fix capitalism before it was too late.
The setting was the opening of Klarman Hall, a new $120 million conference center, built with his family’s donation. “It’s a choice to pay people as little as you can or work them as hard as you can,” he told the audience gathered in the 1,000-seat auditorium. “It’s a choice to maintain pleasant working conditions … or harsh ones; to offer good benefits or paltry ones.” If business leaders didn’t “ask hard questions about capitalism,” he warned that they would be asked by “ideologues seeking to point fingers, assign blame and make reckless changes to the system.”
Six months after that speech, Klarman was struck by how quickly his dire prediction was coming to pass. Leading politicians, such as Trump, Sanders and Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Massachusetts, were advocating positions on tariffs, wealth taxes and changes in corporate governance that would have been unthinkable a few years ago.
Klarman wasn’t opposed to more progressive taxation or regulation. But he worried that these new proposals went much too far. “I think we’re in the middle of a revolution — not a guns revolution — but a revolution where people on both extremes want to blow it up, and good things don’t happen to the vast majority of the population in a revolution,” he said.
He wasn’t the only one who felt a sense of alarm. One of the most popular classes at Harvard Business School, home to the next generation of Fortune 500 executives, was a class on “reimagining capitalism.” Seven years ago, the elective started with 28 students. Now there were nearly 300 taking it. During that period the students had grown increasingly cynical about corporations and the government, said Rebecca Henderson, the Harvard economist who teaches the course.
“What the trust surveys say is what I see,” she said. “They are really worried about the direction in which the U.S. and the world is heading.”
A few dozen of those students spent their winter break reading “Winners Take All,” a book by Anand Giridharadas, a journalist and former McKinsey consultant, that had hit the bestseller list and was provoking heated arguments in places like Silicon Valley, Davos and Harvard Business School. Giridharadas’ book was a withering attack on America’s billionaire class and the notion that America’s iconic capitalists could use their wealth and creativity to solve big social and economic problems that have eluded a plodding and divided government.
This spring, Giridharadas took his argument to Klarman Hall. He slammed Mark Zuckerberg, taking aim at the Facebook founder’s $100 million effort to fix Newark’s faltering schools and his $3 billion push to end disease in a generation. “I’m glad he’s trying to get rid of all the diseases, (but) I wish Facebook wasn’t a plague,” Giridharadas said.
He trashed Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz’s independent presidential run as an effort to protect the interests of the uber-wealthy. And he lambasted the notion, frequently championed by the likes of Bill Gates and Barack Obama, that Silicon Valley’s innovations would disrupt old hierarchies and spread capitalism’s rewards. “Really?” Giridharadas asked. “Now five companies control America, instead of 100! And a lot of those companies are whiter and more male than the ones they disrupted.”
For many of the students, schooled in the notion that business could make a profit while making the world a better place, Giridharadas’ ideas were both energizing and disorienting. Erika Uyterhoeven, a second-year student, recalled one of her fellow classmates turning to her when Giridharadas was finished.
“So, what should we do?” her colleague asked. “Is he saying we shouldn’t go into banking or consulting?”
Added another student: “There was a palpable sense of personal desperation.”
Middle-class upbringing
Khanna experienced a version of this desperation almost every day in his district. He grew up in an overwhelmingly white, middle-class suburb of Philadelphia. After college and Yale Law School, he moved to Silicon Valley in 2003, hoping to use his training as a lawyer to help set the rules for a lawless online world.
In 2014, backed by the tech community and a long roster of billionaire donors, Khanna challenged eight-term incumbent Rep. Mike Honda in a Democratic primary and lost. The defeat caused him to reflect on what he had missed — in particular, the problems that runaway capitalism were causing in his district, where the median home value in formerly blue-collar cities surged past $2 million.
“The best thing that happened to me was that I lost my 2014 election,” he said. “Had I won … maybe I would’ve been a traditional neoliberal. It really forced my self-reflection and it pointed out every weakness I ever had.”
In California, Khanna’s home is a small apartment around the corner from a Dollar Tree, one of only two in his district. His wife and two children live most of the year in Washington, D.C., where home values are cheaper.
His days are split between meetings with billionaires and his many constituents who are struggling to stay afloat amid Silicon Valley’s success. “I am an 11-year renter with a master’s degree,” a teacher told him at a meeting with school employees. Her question wasn’t about whether she would ever be able to afford a home, but about a fellow teacher who couldn’t afford health insurance.
A few days earlier, he had met with two activists who wanted his help pressuring big tech companies to pay contract janitorial and cafeteria workers a living wage. Khanna agreed to host a press event on their behalf.
The billionaires in Khanna’s district, meanwhile, were consumed by a different worry. Mixed in with the valley’s usual frothy optimism about disruption and inventing the future was a growing sense that the tech economy had somehow broken capitalism. The digital revolution had allowed tech entrepreneurs to build massive global companies without the big job-producing factories or large workforces of the industrial era. The result was more and more wealth concentrated in fewer hands.
As technology advanced, some feared things were only going to get worse. Robots were eliminating much factory work; online commerce was decimating retail; and self-driving cars were on the verge of phasing out truck drivers. The next step was computers that could learn and think.
“What happens if you can actually automate all human intellectual labor?” said Greg Brockman, chairman of OpenAI, a company backed by several Silicon Valley billionaires. Such thinking computers might be able to diagnose diseases better than doctors by drawing on superhuman amounts of clinical research, said Brockman, 30. They could displace a large number of office jobs. Eventually, he said, the job shortages would force the government to pay people to pursue their passions or simply live. Only Andrew Yang, a long-shot presidential candidate and tech entrepreneur, supported the idea of government paying citizens a regular income. But the idea of a “universal basic income” was discussed regularly in the valley.
The prospect was both energizing and terrifying. OpenAI had recently added an ethicist — Brockman sometimes referred to her as a “philosopher” — to its staff of about 100 employees to help sort through the implications of its innovations.
To Brockman, a future without work seemed just as likely as one without meat, a possibility that many in the valley viewed as a near certainty. “Once we have meat substitutes as good as the real thing, my expectation is that we’re going to look back at eating meat as this terrible, immoral thing,” he said. The same could be true of work in a future in an era of advanced artificial intelligence. “We’ll look back and say, ‘Wow, that was so crazy and almost immoral that people were forced to go and labor in order to be able to survive,’ ” he said.
Fixing today’s capitalism
Khanna heard such prophecies all the time but mostly discounted them as sci-fi fantasy. His focus was on fixing the version of capitalism that existed today. He often pleaded with big tech executives to spend just 10 percent of their time thinking about what they could do for their country and 90 percent to their companies.
The tougher question was exactly what he wanted them to do with that 10 percent.
On a warm spring evening, Khanna was trying to answer that question for about two dozen Silicon Valley tech executives, software engineers and venture capitalists. The group gathered at a $5 million Mediterranean-style villa perched atop a hill overlooking Cupertino, which glittered in the valley below.
Khanna described a December trip he organized to tiny Jefferson, Iowa, for a group of tech executives that included Microsoft’s chief technology officer and a LinkedIn co-founder. The executives donated to the community college’s scholarship fund and paid to equip its computer lab with the goal of training 25 to 35 students for software developer jobs, starting at $65,000 a year.
Khanna had made similar trips to West Virginia, Ohio and Kentucky. The total number of jobs these trips produced was small, and the pay wasn’t great. Still, Khanna believed they served a larger purpose. They proved that people in Silicon Valley cared about places like Jefferson, a rural town of only 4,200. They gave people hope that even the remotest parts of America could take part in the country’s tech revolution.
The next step, Khanna told the executives at the mansion in Cupertino, California, was a $100 million effort to build 50 technology institutes, similar to land-grant colleges, to train workers in left-behind parts of America. Khanna had already introduced a bill that he admitted was unlikely to pass. But that wasn’t really the point. “It sets a blueprint,” he said.
Khanna’s blueprint reflected his broader view of how to unite an increasingly polarized country. Many Democrats blamed Trump’s victory and the country’s divisions on racial tensions as the nation grew more diverse and whites lost their favored positions.
Khanna had a different view. He saw the country’s problems primarily as the product of growing income inequality and a lack of opportunity.
Sometimes Khanna imagined what people in these left-behind parts of the country were thinking: Their grandparents had fought in World War II and helped build the country’s industrial age economy. Now they worried people like Khanna, whose parents emigrated from India, were surging past them.
“They just got here, and they are doing really, really well,” Khanna imagined these people saying. “What happened to us?”
Not everyone at the tech gathering was buying Khanna’s analysis.
Atam Rao, a nuclear engineer, told Khanna that he had come to the United States from India 50 years earlier. Rao’s son, who founded a successful video-game company in Los Angeles, was born in America. The day after Trump was elected, his son suggested shifting some money to a bank account in India, just in case they needed to return someday.
“Are we welcome here?” he said his son asked.
He believed that Khanna was underestimating the racial anger in the country.
“They found someone to blame,” Rao said of Trump and his backers. “This is not going to be won by logic.”
But that wasn’t the America Khanna knew. It didn’t fit with his experience growing up in suburban Philadelphia or arriving in Silicon Valley, where Indians had become rock stars and CEOs of companies such as Google. And it didn’t comport with the results of the 2018 election, he said, now speaking directly to Rao.
“The same country that elected Trump just elected the most diverse Congress in the country’s history,” Khanna said.
Khanna didn’t deny the problem of racism, but like Sanders he saw the country’s divisions primarily through the prism of capitalism’s shortcomings and the economy, not race.
A few days after the meeting at the Cupertino mansion, Khanna was standing in front of 16,000 amped-up Sanders supporters. The San Francisco skyline rose in front of him and the Golden Gate Bridge spanned the bay behind him.
In his gray suit and pressed white shirt, the two-term congressman looked a bit out of place — an emissary from establishment Washington crashing someone else’s revolution. Khanna gave a brief speech introducing Sanders, who a few minutes later rushed onto the stage and into the same campaign spiel he had been delivering since the 2016 Democratic primaries.
He bashed the billionaire class and its influence over American elections. “Democracy means one person one vote and not billionaires buying elections,” Sanders yelled in his Brooklyn growl.
“We say no to oligarchy,” he continued. “Yes to democracy.”
Khanna’s eyes fixed on Steve Spinner, a big tech investor in Silicon Valley and major fundraiser for Obama’s 2008 and 2012 presidential campaigns. Spinner, who chaired Khanna’s congressional win, was listening with his arms folded across his fleece vest.
“We dragged him out here,” Khanna said. “He’s about as far from Bernie as you can get.”
Many of Khanna’s billionaire supporters — even those who worried about capitalism and inequality — seemed genuinely puzzled by Khanna’s affection for Sanders.
For Khanna it was simple: In Sanders, Khanna found a candidate who shared his diagnosis of the country’s most vexing problems: inequality and the failures of unrestrained capitalism.
Sanders wasn’t a perfect match for Khanna. Sanders didn’t really understand the tech industry — though he wasn’t calling for the breakup of big tech companies like Warren and some other candidates. Warren’s proposal, if executed, would hurt companies in Khanna’s district and alienate some of his wealthiest backers.
Khanna wished Sanders would talk more about the greatness of the American economy and the power of the tech industry, when properly taxed and regulated, to lift people out of poverty. But on that score Khanna believed he could help Sanders.
“We can quibble over his plans to solve this issue or that issue,” Khanna said. “But I have no doubt that if Bernie Sanders was in the White House, he’d wake up every day thinking, ‘How do I solve structural inequality in America?’ ”
The 77-year-old socialist’s speech had passed the one-hour mark and the crowd was still laughing, cheering, hooting and shouting.
“We’re probably not going to get a lot of support from the one percent and the large profitable corporations,” Sanders said.
A voice in the crowd screamed an expletive.
“That’s OK,” Sanders continued, “I don’t need, and we don’t want, their support.”
The congressman in the gray suit gazed out at the crowd, which stretched to the back of the park. Khanna saw Sanders’ revolution as an imperfect solution to a near-impossible problem. For now, though, it was the best he could find.”
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Apr 25, 2024 14:56:45 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Apr 21, 2019 12:54:45 GMT
This is an interesting article in The Press Democrat. “ Silicon Valley leaders, politicians among those asking whether capitalism will survive“.... Without an intervention, he worried that wealth would continue to pile up in Silicon Valley and anger in the country would continue to grow.“It seems like every company in the world has to be here,” Larsen said. “It’s just painfully obvious that the blob is getting bigger.”.... A few dozen of those students spent their winter break reading “Winners Take All,” a book by Anand Giridharadas, a journalist and former McKinsey consultant, that had hit the bestseller list and was provoking heated arguments in places like Silicon Valley, Davos and Harvard Business School. Giridharadas’ book was a withering attack on America’s billionaire class and the notion that America’s iconic capitalists could use their wealth and creativity to solve big social and economic problems that have eluded a plodding and divided government. .... “What happens if you can actually automate all human intellectual labor?” said Greg Brockman, chairman of OpenAI, a company backed by several Silicon Valley billionaires. Such thinking computers might be able to diagnose diseases better than doctors by drawing on superhuman amounts of clinical research, said Brockman, 30. They could displace a large number of office jobs. Eventually, he said, the job shortages would force the government to pay people to pursue their passions or simply live. Only Andrew Yang, a long-shot presidential candidate and tech entrepreneur, supported the idea of government paying citizens a regular income. But the idea of a “universal basic income” was discussed regularly in the valley..... Khanna had a different view. He saw the country’s problems primarily as the product of growing income inequality and a lack of opportunity..... He believed that Khanna was underestimating the racial anger in the country.“They found someone to blame,” Rao said of Trump and his backers. “This is not going to be won by logic.”But that wasn’t the America Khanna knew. It didn’t fit with his experience growing up in suburban Philadelphia or arriving in Silicon Valley, where Indians had become rock stars and CEOs of companies such as Google. And it didn’t comport with the results of the 2018 election, he said, now speaking directly to Rao.“The same country that elected Trump just elected the most diverse Congress in the country’s history,” Khanna said. Khanna didn’t deny the problem of racism, but like Sanders he saw the country’s divisions primarily through the prism of capitalism’s shortcomings and the economy, not race. ... This is what I see too. I work w/Silicon Vally billionaires. I go to some of their conferences. They are futurists. They know what is coming. If the average American knew what they know they would be FREAKING OUT. That's why we have to get ahead of the coming dystopia where we are a country of super-billionaires, the totems who service them and everyone else. Hello Feudalism. SV tech bros also don't relish the idea of living like hostages behind their armed gates unable to move about somewhat freely in society. But they have to come to terms w/UBI, higher taxes, etc. They are the ones ushering in the future of less work. They have to find a way for people to live in a vastly different economic system. The Ghiridharadas book is also on point. It tells of the "largesse" of the super-wealthy, so long as they get to stay super-wealthy. These conversations are starting at Davos and Sun Valley. But we have a long way to go to convince a nation of "if he not work, nor shall he eat" folks that there will be less and less work and the work that exists will require higher and higher mental order. PS - Yes, we elected the most diverse Congress in history - FROM THE CITIES. Rural America is still looking backward, not forward.
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lizacreates
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 3,856
Aug 29, 2015 2:39:19 GMT
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Post by lizacreates on Apr 21, 2019 15:39:00 GMT
“Instead of billionaires and billion-dollar corps paying their fair share to help with law enforcement, mental health, schools, roads, etc., the low-wage and mid-wage earners PAY THEM!" "Another ill effect is that government debt balloons.” “President Donald Trump and majorities in Congress are all for infrastructure improvements too. But it never happens. And the reason is money. There is no money to do it when so many U.S. corporations use this infrastructure to make boatloads of money, pay no taxes and demand the government give them workers’ tax dollars."
Oh, so all boats weren’t lifted. Fancy that. Incredible that we have not learned this lesson after forty freakin’ years! Supply-side economics does NOT work. Stop electing presidents with amnesia.
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