Bernie Sanders Home Run Rant Last Night in The Presenditial Debate!

a reply to: Puppylove

I don't care either. You brought it up.

a reply to: yeahright

Actually ahabaster or however it's spelled did...

a reply to: yeahright

To be fair, I brought it up.

Price and wage controls don’t hold up well in consideration of just compensation for art. While it can be argued that a TV show or movie is akin to a lithograph of a stage play because there will always be nuances between a recording and a live show (see musical acts), the subjective value is always room for debate with general line item rulings.

Seldom is the successful running of a business compared to art, but there is an art to it as two identical businesses can have different results based on location, promotion, presentation, etc. Sometimes a single worker that interacts well with the customers can make a difference, if the other place doesn’t have that.

a reply to: Puppylove

Caught me typing.

a reply to: Ahabstar

But isn't important how any business or compensation is done so long as any individual wealth that goes over cap gets funnelled to the bottom to raise the overall.

In a way still using the 100 times example with the #ty 25,000 minimum example. Say it would mean the most an art object could get someone is 2,500,000 and that's assuming they make no other profits all year.

But for #s and giggles lets assume business is booming and the entertainment industry is raking in the dough causing an excess of wealth gain in that industry. As a result big name actors are making 5,000,000 a year, and lets pretend there's 100 such big named actors throughout the world. That's assuming eight billion people, three extra cents added to everyone's pay throughout the world contributed evenly.

Assuming the only job is acting for simplicity sake. The minimum anyone earned that year increased by .03 cents. Which means the cap just increased by 3 dollars that year. Every year cap would be based of the minimum at the end of the last year.

This means the wealthiest of society is determined by the overall health of society. The better off society is as a whole the better off things are for the wealthy and they still get to be, by far, more well off than the lowest in society by a large factor.

There might be better ways to do this than I'm suggesting. Mostly brainstorming here.

a reply to: Puppylove

I am with you on not believing I can trust Bernie anymore

a reply to: Waterglass

That's a fairly short porch if we're going to call that a home run. Sorry, not sorry, but Bernie does not impress me in the slightest. He's the classic flower child burnout idealist whose ideas are unobtainable within the confines of everything this nation was founded on and whose ideologies are ridiculously naive. He lacks even a rudimentary understanding of economics, which is not surprising considering his entire life as an earner has come through public employee positions.

originally posted by: yeahright
a reply to: Gryphon66

I agree. Get the dirty money out of politics should be Step 1. Or at least right near the top. Congresspeople being multimillionaires after a couple of terms is absolutely criminal.

I'm holding out some (faint) hope the decimation of the national media will result in some replacement that is down the middle enough to hold both sides accountable. Because that's definitely not happening now.

All media is entertainment. We need to stop considering any of it as "news."

All media has agendas set by the corporate masters beginning and end.

What should we do in the face of those two facts? The only hope I see is critical or objective thinking.

a reply to: Puppylove

A wealth Gap means nothing. Is the standard if living increasing our decreasing for everyone, that's the question to ask. Anything else means nothing.

Jaden

Not at the rate it should. We should be a lot further along than we are.

Standard of Living is one comparison, yes. How about those above and below the poverty line?

The so-called poverty line is below $25K or so for a FAMILY OF FOUR in the US. I couldn't live on that by myself.

Nearly a third of Americans (100 million) are "near the poverty line."

The disparity in wealth is what tends to bring on those nasty revolutions. (France, Russia, etc.)

If I were an elite, I'd be interested in ways to solve those problems, not ignore them.

a reply to: Gryphon66

That's what a percentile based wealth cap does. It directly connects the success of the wealthy with the success of society as a whole, all while still encouraging entrepreneurs because it still rewards exceptionalism, while also not allowing excess to run rampant.

Balance in all things.

originally posted by: Puppylove
a reply to: Waterglass

I wish I could trust Sanders, but I no longer feel I can.

One thing I can't stand from the right is their stubborn refusal to even acknowledge there's any issue with the widening wealth gap. Just calling everyone whiners and are doing everything they can to protect the status quo.

Tho complete refusal to tackle or even acknowledge this issue is one of the biggest turn off for me from the right. Is the main reason I wish the left would pull their head out of their ass and get their act together. At the moment they are completely nuts and can't be voted for. At the same time, the right will NEVER give a # about the wealth gap, so #ed either way.

I think it's important to understand what living in the USA is about. I am a sincerely unremarkable individual. I am a hard worker, and have some skills that aren't something everyone else has. So I capitalized on that, and started a business. Amazingly enough, the harder I worked, the more money I made. I found that my potential was only limited to my work ethic, and sadly, my ability to understand what I WASN'T good at. So I'm still at it, and I do just fine. Sure I could do more, but I'm old and give out. Point it, there is no limit on what I could or couldn't do. The trick is, finding what you do better than others, and market that to them for a price. If you aren't outgoing, courageous and a but nuts, then working for others might be the safer option. But you need to understand that our system allows for lots of things to happen, and some of that is making money.

The advice I was given a long time ago is to surround yourself with people you would most like to emulate. If you hang out with turkeys, don't be surprised when you can't fly very far. (also advice from grandpa)

a reply to: network dude

"There is no limit to what I could and couldn't do."

Is this just a manner of speaking, or are you serious?

a reply to: network dude

Can we limit expectations to the average person for a decent life?

You shouldn't have to be a super man for basic success. Is silly to expect everyone to jump through hoops when the vast majority of humans want a simple life.

Life is short and most want to be able to enjoy it with their loved ones. Not spend it struggling in an absurd rat race they didn't sign up for and have no interest in.

People shouldn't be expected to do anything more than go to work, any work should do, and thus contribute to society by being a functional cog within it. As long as they do that they should be fine. It should also only take one parent to do it or two part time. Kids need guidance, love and support, not a broken home, which is what you have if it takes two parents working full time.

Also, luck is a big part of 'success' but it shouldn't be a big part of stability, which is what most people need.

Success is a want, stability is a need. If we want to be successful as a society we need to separate the two. Once we do that, we as a society will thrive in ways unimaginable.

Once people start working for wants rather than to fulfill needs, society will explode with progress.

The idea that anyone should be one paycheck away from disaster is absurd no matter what job they do. Even worse, the expectatin that people should both, bust their ass working like dogs, but lose any progress and have their life ruined due to the medical problems that are near guaranteed to happen to most people as a result of working so hard.

To me, the questions are not even about right and wrong, good and bad, but about productive and non-productive measures.

It is not productive for Americans to only be able to afford the cheapest food, the worst places to live, and to have to go to work when they're sick.

It's just basic practicality for all of us. IF we were to bring values into the measure ... well, what did Jesus say again ...?

a reply to: Gryphon66

Is why I propose a tying the max to the success of the least. It encourages building an efficient healthy society and hammers home how both ends of the spectrum are tied together.

Society exists for one purpose, man vs. nature. We are competing with the universe, not each other. Those who best help with this endevor deserve to be rewarded, but once they start leaving large section of humanity behind for their own benefit they've become a problem as much as any serial killer, as they are harming society and the very purpose of it as a whole.

a reply to: Puppylove

I don't disagree with you at all in fact, that's an eloquent way of stating the point: "we are competing with the universe, not each other."

a reply to: Puppylove

This is just my opinion. I'm going to use myself as an example here. I do not need the type of cars I have, I wanted them and purchased them. I do not need the type of house I'm building, I wanted it that way and am spending that money. My wife and I have tons of goofy crap that no one actually needs, it's just a want.

Now if you provide me the basics; food, shelter, transportation, all basic needs met (we can discuss what constitutes a basic need if you'd like, I'm open). I no longer strive to buy my nice cars, because they are a byproduct of my work and pay that accompanies that work. I no longer strive for my dream home, because one is being provided for me, the only reason I am getting one now is a byproduct of my work. Same for all of the other little things that my wife and I have, those all go away, because I'm now being provided with the necessities of life, without any of the headache associated with having to work for them. Since I am being given everything I need, why in the world would I want to work? Or should I say, why would I want to work in a field that is a betterment to society? Heck I'd take up painting or writing or some other thing that provides no material value or advancement to society.

This is just once more using myself as an example, results are probably not typical, but something tells me a higher percentage than you would think. I work to make ends meet, it just so happens that the work I'm suited to and happy with pays fairly well, so I'm also capable of affording stuff that technically I don't need. Remove the need to make ends meet and you now remove my need for a job. You've now removed my buying power from the economy, now remove that buying power from even say 25% of the population that does have buying power to some degree. The system starts to collapse in on itself then, less people needing nicer cars means less people building them, means more people taking the UBI and checking out of the workforce.

a reply to: Puppylove

Actually I've seen hundreds on the right discuss
the widening wealth gap. Right here on ATS
are hundreds of threads started by conservative
thinkers.

Good luck on trying to inform their detractors
on the basic fundamentals of a Free Market
system.

In their mind anyone that has considerable
wealth must have stole it, or have been born
into it.

Develop, invent, sell, service or innovate
anything that makes you an asset to more
than oneself produces wealth.

It's not the fault of the entrepreneur if
his or her neighbor only aspires to be a
wage earner.