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Willa Rogers posted:The problem comes from elected Democrats promising no new taxes for "middle-class" Americans making (eta: up to) $400,000/year, aka the top 1 percent of earners. I agree Willa. I mean the bigger problem is the GOP cutting rich peoples taxes when they can and blocking any attempts to raise taxes. But yes that needs to change. It’s time to tax rich people. I mean we should primarily target the 0.1%. I think if the rate hikes continue to not work on inflation, they’re going to start reaching that conclusion. I mean even Larry Summers is starting to say tax the rich. They’ll drag it out as long as they can of course.
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Jun 16, 2023 18:06
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I highly recommend going through this Twitter thread of excerpts from the DOJ investigation of the Minneapolis PD. Unfortunately it’s just a microcosm of policing in America today. https://twitter.com/radleybalko/status/1669749466352562183?s=46&t=BHs6Pl38GJXGN2Y4xeriNA
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Jun 16, 2023 18:11
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Willa Rogers posted:The problem comes from elected Democrats promising no new taxes for "middle-class" Americans making (eta: up to) $400,000/year, aka the top 1 percent of earners. But apparently if you just lifted the cap, with no donut hole, it would be enough to keep SS solvent through 2046. Which is pretty close to "solving the problem."  In 2046 that millennial bump will only be ~44-60 and years from collecting benefits, and Boomer ages will vary from 80 to 100 or so and their percentage of the population will be falling pretty fast. So if we can punt for 25 years we'll may have gotten past most of the solvency issue. (Especially if we ever let people who desperately want to work here and pay our payroll taxes do so instead of excluding them out of myopic xenophobia.) 160k is genuinely not a lot of money with today's dollar, especially in pricier locales, so that tax increase would legitimately hurt some people.* Of course, there are other ways we can use the tax code or fiscal policy to offset that. =I have to imagine the benefit of the new taxes declines fairly rapidly when you put in a donut hole or start increasing the size, because a lot more people make, say, $180k than $220, so if we did do any kind of donut hole it would only be a partial solution. * Maybe, so it doesn't affect any existing actually-middle-class household budgets, you could maybe grandfather in anybody currently making 160-400k, but when people reach that bracket afterwards you keep charging the tax, and it's just the rate they're already accustomed to.
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Jun 16, 2023 18:19
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Bar Ran Dun posted:But yes that needs to change. It’s time to tax rich people. I mean we should primarily target the 0.1%. I think if the rate hikes continue to not work on inflation, they’re going to start reaching that conclusion. I mean even Larry Summers is starting to say tax the rich. And if that's not enough, those numbers are for 2015, before the Trump tax cuts and the pandemic, which both created gigantic windfalls for all those people, and we've had eight more years of the wealth-concentrating force of the "invisible hand" wreaking its ever-accelerating havoc. "You can't fix the deficit by just taxing the rich" was something people said 20-30 years ago, and it was true, but they've gotten so insanely loving rich that it's really not anymore. That said, refusing to raise taxes on any non-rich person ever isn't a good thing, because "fixing the deficit" isn't a goal unto itself unless you're Pete Peterson or Larry Summers. If the government wanted to provide new universal services like UBI or single payer healthcare it would have to raise taxes on a broader cross section of the population (albeit while giving most of them more back in new benefits.)
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Jun 16, 2023 18:34
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You wouldn't need to raise taxes for anyone under 250k if the wealthy actually paid what they owe (we should have a wealth cap in addition to high tax rates for income between 400k and whatever the wealth cap is). I realize I might as well ask for a unicorn, should vs would and will be I suppose.
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Jun 16, 2023 18:37
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cat botherer posted:Jared was the dumbest person in the Trump admin, which was quite the achievement. I have a hard time seeing that. "Dumbest" would probably have to go to one of the numerous people who thought they'd be able to rein Trump in and profit from his popularity while maintaining some level of control over him, only to get thrown under the bus with absolutely zero loyalty or support from Trump. There were plenty inside his administration. Or maybe the people like Kellyanne Conway who signed up to be his interface with the press, the public faces of the Trump administration. Kushner stayed behind the scenes, where he grifted the hell out of the Trump administration, took petty revenge on a family enemy, got his dad pardoned, and then got the gently caress out of politics basically the instant Trump lost the election and was no longer immediately useful to him. I don't think any of that indicates brilliance, but there were a ton of people who weren't even smart enough to do that. Neither Kushner nor Eric can be crowned "dumbest" when the likes of Giuliani and Meadows were around.
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Jun 16, 2023 18:38
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Main Paineframe posted:I have a hard time seeing that. "Dumbest" would probably have to go to one of the numerous people who thought they'd be able to rein Trump in and profit from his popularity while maintaining some level of control over him, only to get thrown under the bus with absolutely zero loyalty or support from Trump. There were plenty inside his administration. Or maybe the people like Kellyanne Conway who signed up to be his interface with the press, the public faces of the Trump administration.
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Jun 16, 2023 18:40
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Bar Ran Dun posted:I agree Willa. I mean the bigger problem is the GOP cutting rich peoples taxes when they can and blocking any attempts to raise taxes. I disagree; I think "the bigger problem[s]" are that Democrats have bought into the neoliberal tropes about taxes being bad, and that "rich people" are narrowly defined as those within the top 1 percent of income brackets. I've watched this dance over several decades: Republicans slash taxes across all income groups, then Democrats kinda-sorta-maybe restore taxes for the top 1 percent, but usually to not what they were before they were slashed. Rinse & repeat so nobody ever is paying more taxes than they were 10 years ago, with a few exceptions for stuff like the tax for not carrying health insurance that Obama imposed, or for richies in blue states who lost their SALT deductions under Trump. eta: I also disagree that "we should primarily target the 0.1%"; that's exactly the dynamic that feeds into the trope that only the richest of the richest need to pay more taxes when I believe that those far less richer than that should pay more in taxes, too. Having worked with richies for the last three decades I feel secure in stating that they know how to shield their money from taxes, and fortunately for them, the people who make the tax laws that allow richies to evade taxation are richies themselves, too. Willa Rogers fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Jun 16, 2023 |
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Jun 16, 2023 18:40
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Professor Beetus posted:You wouldn't need to raise taxes for anyone under 250k if the wealthy actually paid what they owe (we should have a wealth cap in addition to high tax rates for income between 400k and whatever the wealth cap is. But yeah, if you look at those wealth figures it becomes pretty clear that the entire national debt is just money that was transferred from the public to the absolute wealthiest people, people with a thousandfold more dollars than anybody could possibly ever need. The debt doesn't reflect any actual dysfunction in government spending, it reflects that bullshit. The treasury estimate is $163 billion evaded by the top 1%, but that's clearly a huge undercount when you consider it's only counting current law and not no-duh-obvious policies like taxing unrealized capital gains or ten-figure wealth. It'll be interesting to see how much the new IRS funding raises. Biden and the Dems underplayed how much money the IRA would end up spending - maybe they're doing something similar by underplaying how much IRS enforcement will really raise. It's not going to "fix everything" without actual changes to the tax code but it's a hell of a start. Professor Beetus posted:You wouldn't need to raise taxes for anyone under 250k if the wealthy actually paid what they owe (we should have a wealth cap in addition to high tax rates for income between 400k and whatever the wealth cap is). My Swiftian proposal is that every year, we sacrifice the 100 richest people in the country to the Money God. That fifteenth yacht wouldn't quite be worth it anymore, would it? 
Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 18:52 on Jun 16, 2023 |
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Jun 16, 2023 18:44
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This is what happens when you use ChatGPT trained on Ted Cruz's brain to make a anti-democratic party slam. https://news.yahoo.com/ted-cruz-mercilessly-mocked-bizarre-054803811.html (oh, wait.. he actually said this?) “I don’t think Senate Democrats, if you had video of Joe Biden murdering children dressed as the devil under a full moon while singing Pat Benatar, they still wouldn’t vote to convict.” see. I have some honest questions to go with my laughter that Pat Benatar is apparently considered satanic. Does this video involve Joe Biden, dressed as the devil, murdering children while singing Pat Benatar? Or.. Does this video involved Joe Biden murdering children dressed as the devil who are Singing Pat Benatar. Because I think my impeachment vote would change if the children were dressed as the devil while say, singing "Hit me with your best shot". Clear grounds for provocation.
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Jun 16, 2023 18:52
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Mellow Seas posted:That's true in general, but not for Social Security which statutorily has to be paid either by payroll taxes or the trust fund. So in that case, it's not the rich not paying what they owe, it's just the rich owing almost nothing relative to a regular person. Of course, Congress can undo that any time they want and start pouring general funds into SS. Highly disagree with this assessment. The rich should owe tremendously for SS since they are directly benefiting from the stagnant wages, lost benefits, destruction of pensions, etc etc. They should be paying to make up for their unwillingness to contribute to society in general, because their parasitic presence (and support from the government) is why many people will find themselves without any sort of retirement other than SS which is laughably unlivable for anyone forced to rely on it alone.
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Jun 16, 2023 18:52
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Professor Beetus posted:Highly disagree with this assessment. The rich should owe tremendously for SS since they are directly benefiting from the stagnant wages, lost benefits, destruction of pensions, etc etc. They should be paying to make up for their unwillingness to contribute to society in general, because their parasitic presence (and support from the government) is why many people will find themselves without any sort of retirement other than SS which is laughably unlivable for anyone forced to rely on it alone.
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Jun 16, 2023 18:53
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Professor Beetus posted:Highly disagree with this assessment. The rich should owe tremendously for SS since they are directly benefiting from the stagnant wages, lost benefits, destruction of pensions, etc etc. They should be paying to make up for their unwillingness to contribute to society in general, because their parasitic presence (and support from the government) is why many people will find themselves without any sort of retirement other than SS which is laughably unlivable for anyone forced to rely on it alone. Leon was correct in pointing out that unearned income also should be taxed for Medicare/SS pay-ins, especially bc that's likely whence most 1 percenters' income is derived. Willa Rogers fucked around with this message at 19:19 on Jun 16, 2023 |
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Jun 16, 2023 19:15
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Daniel Ellsberg, Who Leaked the Pentagon Papers, Is Dead at 92 Deeply disturbed by the accounting of American deceit in Vietnam, he approached The New York Times. The disclosures that followed rocked the nation. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/16/us/daniel-ellsberg-dead.html (I had a lunch meeting with William Colby Jr. in 1994, and he basically confirmed what these papers stated).
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Jun 16, 2023 19:35
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Willa Rogers posted:I disagree; I think "the bigger problem[s]" are that Democrats have bought into the neoliberal tropes about taxes being bad, and that "rich people" are narrowly defined as those not within the top 1 percent of income brackets. Willa inequality is much much worse than it was several decades ago. It’s not even the same question anymore as taxing the regular rich. Yes we should tax the regular rich more too. I think any household over 250k should be paying more. But for the extremely wealthy... if inequality continues to get worse, I think the conversation is going to change from taxation to confiscation. It’s at the point now that it is affecting the stability of society.
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Jun 16, 2023 19:46
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We could always bring back Roman style treason trials.
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Jun 16, 2023 19:57
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Make me dictator of America and I will tax the rich 50% of their income in any way and oppress them. I wonder if I ran on that would it get me elected
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Jun 16, 2023 20:01
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Gatts posted:Make me dictator of America and I will tax the rich 50% of their income in any way and oppress them. You'd probably have a hard time getting known due to not having as much money to pay for ads and volunteers and your media coverage would be unrelentingly negative. There would probably be very few, if any, super PACs supporting you. Those seem like bad things, but dumber things have happened.
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Jun 16, 2023 20:12
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Gatts posted:Make me dictator of America and I will tax the rich 50% of their income in any way and oppress them. Well they’d kill you
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Jun 16, 2023 20:14
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Willa Rogers posted:Leon was correct in pointing out that unearned income also should be taxed for Medicare/SS pay-ins, especially bc that's likely whence most 1 percenters' income is derived. Sure yeah, absolutely. I am speaking pretty generally here, I know the wealthy have all kinds of ways of getting out of paying taxes and when I say we should tax them more and cap their wealth, you can assume I am talking about getting the money from them however you can, particularly since many CEOs already benefit from having "low salaries" to make up for the fact that they are getting paid hand over foot in a myriad of other ways and hoarding like a libertarian dragon.
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Jun 16, 2023 20:18
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Came across this via another forum & thought it was particularly newsworthy:quote:Cancer rates are climbing among young people. It’s not clear why.
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Jun 16, 2023 20:24
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Willa Rogers posted:Came across this via another forum & thought it was particularly newsworthy: quote:And the list of suspects goes on. Bleyer says the increased use of diagnostic imaging such as CT scans and X rays, which expose patients to low levels of carcinogenic radiation, could be contributing, especially for cancers impacting the blood and bone marrow. When it comes to the uptick in testicular cancer, meanwhile, he says rising cannabis use is likely the leading culprit. [ed. note: I was going to just assume vaping and lung cancer at some level until they said that specifically lmao
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Jun 16, 2023 20:30
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I did not know that cannabis use increased your risk for testicular cancer or that obesity dramatically increased the risk of uterine cancer. But, they both appear to be true. The testicular cancer increase only seems to apply to "heavy lifetime users" and not light users. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5812006/ Seeing a scientist say "X-rays and CT scans might be giving you cancer, but we're not 100% sure" is also not a super encouraging thing to read as my doctor is trying to get me to sign up for a CT colonoscopy. Silver Lining: Most of the increase seems to be from much more early detection and not life-threatening cancers.
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Jun 16, 2023 20:32
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:I did not know that cannabis use increased your risk for testicular cancer or that obesity dramatically increased the risk of uterine cancer. Early screening and higher obesity look like they explain a huge part of it.
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Jun 16, 2023 20:38
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quote:Ugai tells me there’s speculation changes in our sleep patterns could be involved, though evidence is “quite limited.” The direct evidence may be limited but it would be surprising if it didn't have some effects, maybe large ones, based on how important it is on a cellular level.
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Jun 16, 2023 20:47
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VideoGameVet posted:Daniel Ellsberg, Who Leaked the Pentagon Papers, Is Dead at 92 This guy was extraordinarily brave, in that he expected that he'd probably go to forever jail over exposing this. It was only the Nixon administration's insane corruption that saved him.
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Jun 16, 2023 20:58
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Adenoid Dan posted:The direct evidence may be limited but it would be surprising if it didn't have some effects, maybe large ones, based on how important it is on a cellular level. Lack of good sleep often also results in weight gain & obesity, iirc, the latter of which has been correlated with cancer.
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Jun 16, 2023 20:58
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Adenoid Dan posted:The direct evidence may be limited but it would be surprising if it didn't have some effects, maybe large ones, based on how important it is on a cellular level. Eh, one part of the speculation around sleep patterns isn't as much the sleep patterns themselves, but the accompanying behaviors. Poor sleep is often associated with alcohol, tobacco, and recreational drug abuse. Basically, correlation not causation.
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Jun 16, 2023 20:59
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Shooting Blanks posted:Eh, one part of the speculation around sleep patterns isn't as much the sleep patterns themselves, but the accompanying behaviors. Poor sleep is often associated with alcohol, tobacco, and recreational drug abuse. Basically, correlation not causation. The circadian rhythm controls most protein expression in one way or another and things like cell cycle regulation, so those probably do have their own effects that would probably be difficult to disentangle, but the circadian rhythm by itself will have an effect, depending on the cancer. Edit: what a beautiful and comprehensible sentence I have made Adenoid Dan fucked around with this message at 21:27 on Jun 16, 2023 |
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Jun 16, 2023 21:02
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:Like, does this mean next model year hybrid cars will be cheaper, or? Of course not, nor does it address that the vast majority of US residents couldn't buy a new car if they wanted to, and it's been that way for a decade now. Much less the charging hardware to go full electric, assuming they have a personal parking space or our electrical grid can handle demand upscaling during the nights that heavily without decades of infrastructure investment that haven't been happening. Meanwhile, in better news: https://twitter.com/LaurenKGurley/status/1669734526019424257?t=KiBX-tlH6-fLQtRkvtniUg&s=19 I'm sure the admin's going to move to block the strike, as bullshit as that is.
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Jun 16, 2023 21:05
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Liquid Communism posted:
If Biden blocks this strike, he'll get laughter next time he calls himself a union guy.
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Jun 16, 2023 21:13
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Meatball posted:If Biden blocks this strike, he'll get laughter next time he calls himself a union guy. The government doesn't have the ability to block a strike at a private truck delivery company. It specifically has to be a railroad company because of old laws from the 1800's (or airlines, which were added later).
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Jun 16, 2023 21:18
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:The government doesn't have the ability to block a strike at a private truck delivery company. It specifically has to be a railroad company because of old laws from the 1800's (or airlines, which were added later). This, the railroads have their own process for going on strike, which is why Biden and Congress were able to block it. That said, there is precedent for other strikes to be stopped or delayed by the government. quote:When the steel industry and the union failed to reach an agreement on a new contract at the end of 1951, the steelworkers announced their intention to call a nationwide steel strike. President Truman warned that, in the midst of the Korean War, such a strike would gravely threaten the national defense. We're not at war currently, however, and while Biden can argue that it would destabilize the economy - it falls pretty far out of bounds from anything that's been done in the past.
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Jun 16, 2023 21:24
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I've never worked in a union job, how does that work? Is joining the union a mandatory condition of employment (like, they'll say: fill out this e-verify form, this form for your tax info, this form for background checks, oh and this form to join the union) or is the hiring completely handled by the union itself (as in, instead of applying to Acme Corp, I'd have to instead apply to Union Group to be placed in Acme Corp)?
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Jun 16, 2023 21:25
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Boris Galerkin posted:I've never worked in a union job, how does that work? Is joining the union a mandatory condition of employment (like, they'll say: fill out this e-verify form, this form for your tax info, this form for background checks, oh and this form to join the union) or is the hiring completely handled by the union itself (as in, instead of applying to Acme Corp, I'd have to instead apply to Union Group to be placed in Acme Corp)? Generally, the company handles the hiring and they have an agreement with the union to pay at $X rate and require all employees to be a member of the union as a condition of employment. You would apply for a job at Acme Corp, which has a collective bargaining agreement with the SEIU that it requires you to agree to as a condition of employment. You wouldn't apply directly with SEIU and then be assigned to a job at Acme Corp.
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Jun 16, 2023 21:35
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Reading about the UPS strike is p funny. Only in TYOOL 2023 does UPS agree to put A/C in the trucks, and only in new trucks. Old trucks get a second fan.
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Jun 16, 2023 21:37
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Liquid Communism posted:Meanwhile, in better news: lol and they just got tentative agreement to put air conditioning in UPS delivery trucks too. https://twitter.com/Teamsters/status/1668760152416325632
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Jun 16, 2023 21:43
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Generally, the company handles the hiring and they have an agreement with the union to pay at $X rate and require all employees to be a member of the union as a condition of employment. You would apply for a job at Acme Corp, which has a collective bargaining agreement with the SEIU that it requires you to agree to as a condition of employment. You wouldn't apply directly with SEIU and then be assigned to a job at Acme Corp. I see. And if it’s agreed to be paid at $X rate then does that mean there’s no nonsense with negotiating a salary and whatnot? Just here’s a job, here’s what it pays and what you get, do you accept? That sounds like the dream.
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Jun 16, 2023 21:45
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Generally, the company handles the hiring and they have an agreement with the union to pay at $X rate and require all employees to be a member of the union as a condition of employment. You would apply for a job at Acme Corp, which has a collective bargaining agreement with the SEIU that it requires you to agree to as a condition of employment. You wouldn't apply directly with SEIU and then be assigned to a job at Acme Corp. Oh, Leon, I do adore your little lies - even the lies of ignorance are such delightful little artifacts to behold. quote:and require all employees to be a member of the union as a condition of employment. is absolutely not true, and borderline pushes a narrative that companies want their workers unionized - if companies wanted their workers to organize, we wouldn't need laws on the book that specifically prohibit employers from engaging in union-busting activities because...union-busting wouldn't be a thing! How it actually works if you're joining a company with an already established union is that you enter the employ of the company in what is called a 'bargaining unit' - this is the whole sum of employees that a CBA covers whether those employees elect to formally join the union or not - you can choose to opt out of the union and remain a non-voting bargaining unit member but you lose things like your Weingarten rights, the ability to vote on contracts or to go on strike or authorize other collective actions, and you generally lose access to "members only" spaces (typically slack or discord servers in the age of virtual work) and communications (emails, texts, whatever). You do not lose out on negotiated salary bands, job descriptions and duties, and mandatory raises - these are negotiated by the union across the entire bargaining unit, regardless of an individual person holding that position's union membership status. Depending on the specificities in the contract (let's say around unlimited time off policies), there may be contract language that applies specifically to union members - for example, this part of my CBA:  only applies to dues paying members - while it incentivizes equal treatment under a premise of "the boss doesn't want to have to check someone's union membership status every time a time off request comes in" a particularly lovely boss with an axe to grind could absolutely treat a member of the union and a member of only the bargaining unit in two entirely different ways. Maybe you shouldn't go around speaking so authoritatively on things you very obviously have little personal experience with. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jun 16, 2023 21:53
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Generally, the company handles the hiring and they have an agreement with the union to pay at $X rate and require all employees to be a member of the union as a condition of employment. You would apply for a job at Acme Corp, which has a collective bargaining agreement with the SEIU that it requires you to agree to as a condition of employment. You wouldn't apply directly with SEIU and then be assigned to a job at Acme Corp. This is flatly untrue. The entire US has been right-to-work since 2018, meaning agency fees are illegal. Mandatory union membership has been illegal since like 1950: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_v._AFSCME
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