Funny reading these comments saying there will be always be losers and winners. That is 100% right, but no loser or loser kid should ever go hungry nor unsure where they will sleep tonight. Loser shouldn’t mean food insecurity. In the richest country in the world that should never happen. It’s of course not because of Zuck, but the system that allows it.
You give so much to others? Just how much are you making from them first? The greatest beneficiaries of globalism has been the US. Don’t go thinking that the US navy is some philanthropic endeavour. The US is an economic empire that controls world trade and manipulates it to their advantage at every turn. It’s laughable when people in the US think they can maintain their position in the global world order by retreating into isolationism. Pass the batten, as the British did and watch your power, economy and influence wane.
Truth
175 billion to Ukraine is what they’re referring to. Many think we need to help maintain their sovereignty while others think we’re recklessly sending all of our tax revenue
The more likely truth is, we’re destabilizing a potential adverse pocket of power that has the ability to control the resources our stabile allies depend on. Leverage in a global economy and in conflict. We break unpredictable nations at the knee. We’re spending US dollars, but Ukrainian lives.
The US does leverage the world currency and has had a negative impact on many nations, but my most rosy shade of cynical considers it a global tax. We provide stability and shelter technological growth.. both are needed if we want to sustainably prevent egomaniacal global disrupters as a human race. We don’t infringe on the policy of nations that play ball
We also aren't sending them cash either. We're sending them discontinued / obsolete/ just plain old equipment worth that much and supplies and ammunition.
Not to mention, we’ve crippled the Army and Navy of the 2nd largest near-peer competitor to the United States.
A War with China without the aid of Russia looks much different than with.
We funded a war that completely drained Russia's military forces without having to put a single boot on the ground, in this unstable world stage that's honestly worth every penny. I don't agree with the more shady ways we play shadow games in the rest of the world, but this one was a good play. We hurt the bad guys, and helped the little guys in the process. It's not very often we get to do that.
While there is a lot of truth in this statement, it is worth considering that the stability and technological advancement with no consideration for our future has led us to the point where Zuck thinks a 100 million dollar bunker on an island is a good move for his family.
America disrupts the power plays whether the motive is morally righteous or not.
One could make the statement that while it's citizens live in an unprecedented time of security and prosperity, it is US who are the egomaniacal global disrupters
Well that strategy has backfired because now 50% of the world's economic output and 75% of the world's population controlling 75% of the world's resources have formed alliances that oppose the United States and our NATO buddies.
People don't understand when they say they are sending X amount in aid, they aren't sending that in money.
The vast majority of it is in the form of military and civilian hardware worth that much money.
100% agree. It’s not helping inflation either so they give the money to other countries, yet in the homeland let people suffer. “Too bad should have been born rich, orherwise pull yourself up by the bootstraps.
I agree lower the federal revenue as a percentage of GDP and give everyone tax cuts, or do you think Eisenhower's tax code took more because you only look at the pre-deduction, cut, and incentive percentage and stop all thought after that? Eisenhower oversaw the 4th and 5th lowest years of tax revenue as a percentage of GDP since 44 and averaged far lower rates than we have since 2014 (we had the 3rd highest level in 2022 only beaten by 1945 [1st] and 2000 [2nd]). Can we also return to the budgetary breakdown? It would nearly cut spending by half which is the actual issue as we currently spend 150+% of the federal revenue annually.
Saying that Eisenhower had the 4th and 5th lowest is a bit deceptive, isn't it? Seeing as how the lowest his presidency saw was 13%, sticking at the average of 15% for 6 of his 8 years, he's like every other president; one weirdly high or low year and three at 15%.
Saying that, who told you Eisenhower cut taxes? He famously refused tax cuts requested by his party in favor of balancing the budget. The reason the tax vs GDP works out the way it does has more to do with having higher output, not reduced input. He instituted extremely high tax rates for the upper and corporate classes, not a universal 91% as some say but still high as hell, at a time when the IRS was funded to perform it's responsibilities. People paid their taxes, and it earned us a 0.4% surplus.
That money is primarily bribery in legal and ethical form. We fund Ukraine, for example, not because we love Ukraine but because if Russia actually wins their war, then other countries are next. We prefer to keep Russia where they are. Realistically, most countries we aid are situations in which we *need* something from them. Ukraine, South Korea, Japan, etc are glorified meat shields. In other places, we just want to limit cartels and/or terrorism.
People like Trump fail to understand that America uses money and soft power *first* to get what we want, then weapons. The former is cheaper, more effective and has less public blowback than dead soldiers.
This is one of the few correct comments on this entire thread. https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/money-verify/united-states-foreign-aid-federal-budget-percentage-fact-check/536-09375bcd-56ec-4296-ac79-afb6ac3dbe78#:~:text=It's%20a%20common%20misperception%20that,It's%20actually%20around%201%25.
The US has more abandon houses than homeless people and cant find the solution to the problem. The attitude here is not conducive to solving cultural issues. You can see why the problem exists reading the thread.
Pretty sure a large majority of those houses are in rural towns with 0 resources and jobs for a homeless person. One of those stats that get thrown around for dystopia circle jerks.
And a lot of the houses are also dilapidated and can't be lived in.
And all of what we both noted goes without mentioning that homeless people also can't pay to take care of the houses and will in many cases destroy them with graffiti and trash.
Do you want that crackhead being housed next to you? The US learned a lesson when they went all in building projects, and that was, when you give things to people with no expectations they do not take care of them.
Go volunteer at a shelter, plenty of people come for meals but can't or won't stay because they've either done something to get themselves on the no stay list or they refuse to try to get clean. Everyone gets a meal who needs one, just some have to get it to go.
People on here pretending like homeless people are so great at following the few rules needed to access basic services. At some point it’s not a system issue, but that’s difficult for people who believe every society ill is due to a systemic failure rather than an individual one. We can’t force people to help themselves, they have to want it.
If you want to know the dark truth is to reduce homelessness you need to invest more into keeping people off the streets in the first place, second is getting people who’ve just become homeless back on the right track out of it. And for those who have stayed homeless for awhile pretty much forget about. They’ve changed their way of life and are more or less a lost cause.
I think it’s a human right to have a minimum standard of living and healthcare. Nobody is paying anyone for doing nothing, but a safe place to sleep, food and some basic toiletries shouldn’t be withheld from anyone. We can afford it.
Not that I agree with this... But the problem people have with it is that equality means diminishing the value for people who've accomplished that thing. It's the same reason conservative don't want a higher minimum wage, because they equate their salary to their success and if the bottom rung is making similar money, it diminishes what they worked for. Similarly, if you're barely getting by but paying for your apartment and your car to get to work everyday, you're likely to feel upset that some "deadbeat" gets a free apartment and doesn't have to buy a car because they don't work.
What needs to change is our mindset, this idea that you need to earn things to feel validated. You see too many people on social media bragging about the shit they buy, like anyone else cares. If we'd all quit trying to keep up with the Jones's and impress others, we'd all be much happier with our lives overall. But it'll never happen; some humans are bullies by nature and will always need to shit on others to find a meaning to their own existence.
Definitely mindset changes. Also being aware that even if you are successful, even in a way that is a true net benefit to society, the amount of things you own, use, like, helped get you there is more contributions than you'll ever generate individually. Not to mention a lot of it does come from the backs of taken advantage of people. Which makes everyone in this thread who thinks they somehow can say the most disadvantaged individuals don't deserve basic necessities just comically evil.
I don't care if a rich person has as many yachts as they want as long as any individual has easy access to clean comfortable shelter food and utilities. Which at this point in human history is possible.
That also sounds pretty good to me. Easiest place to cut is military/foreign aid.
We technically spend more on Medicaid/medicare but I don’t feel good about taking money away from sick poor people.
? Right now there aren’t any taxes that they aren’t paying because we don’t tax them because our legislatures are fucktards.
We should be levying a wealth tax on publicly traded equities over some threshold. $100m, $500m $1bln idk.
Plenty of other countries have a wealth tax. We should have one too.
Doesn’t work. Europe already abandoned this crap idea.
Focus on big stuff:Close loopholes.
Simple example. IMO has billions in a tax free account. PayPal pay off.
Limit these accounts to a sum, say 5 mill and force them to withdraw and pay up.
Same for Pete Theile as he did this too
0 to that person. But I’d like to have some programs in place to get them clean, educated, trained, etc. By avoiding issues and refusing to spend money on some social programs, we are making the issue bigger and more costly in the future
It wouldn’t go to the people here that need it. It also makes sure our interests are looked after at a much lower price tag.
If you don’t spend money on diplomacy you have to buy more bullets. (Paraphrasing)
https://www.businessinsider.com/mattis-state-department-funding-need-to-buy-more-ammunition-2017-2?amp
https://concernusa.org/news/foreign-aid-explained/
No we don't. It's about 1%.
The reason we have people homeless and starving is 100% because it Republicans starve the beast a strategy to convince people not to vote to spend on our own people.
We have to money and resources to do anything we want. We choose not to do it.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast
I think it's a George Carlin bit that goes something like the homeless and poor are kept around and almost put on display to keep the middle and lower classes working, fearing that could be them and their family otherwise.
Realistically most people who become homeless don't stay that way, they transition in and out and that's that.
But a good chunk of people never transition out and a good chunk of them just don't want to give up their free nomadic lifestyle.
There's probably always a couple hundred thousand ppl who really don't want employment and responsibilities to the degree they'll choose homelessness. I'm not sure we should really try to stop them too much.
I would compare the US homeless RATE per 100k to other nations to get a more realistic idea if it's a US problem or within the threshold of normal AND THEN worry about using it as proof of something.
This way you pick issues that are easier to prove and fix vs just wishing every problem was a simple as conservative blocking it.
Like National Healthcare is proven to work around the world and save a lot of money, we can compare our nation to others and see that. Same goes with homelessness rate per 100k.
It’s important to distinguish homelessness from poverty. People employed but living near or below the poverty line in this country are setting records for obesity because of the availability of cheap, calorie dense food. Homelessness isn’t just poverty, it’s often a blend of mental illness and substance abuse. Poor people here are the most food secure poor people in the history of the planet.
Imagine a tribe where one guy kills the deer, one person collects the berries, one person builds the houses, and then they give a single person the authority to divide the resources produced evenly among the population. Then, that same guy keeps 99% for himself and gives 1% back to his tribe. I think that guy would be invited to dinner that night.
You just defined the middle ages and prior - also loosely how most Marxist states have ended up. Marxism is really just feudalism with a new set of lords and kings.
Ah yes the commenter under the dumb billionaire post who comments “BOOTLICKER” if you call out a dumb billionaire post.
Queue if you took away every billionaires wealth completely today it would fund the government for x amount of days.
It’s the same convo every single post.
Those people are ironically bootlickers too, same people calling the "billionaire apologists" bootlickers will continue to tell you how there should be 100% tax after x amount of wealth etc....ironically bootlickers themselves, but for the state. Too dumb to see the irony though
Adam is good at earning money so he's rich as hell. let's say he has the ability to earn 1000 dollars per day. Bob is pretty mediocre so he's struggling. let's say he earns 100 dollars per day.
people start rioting and the government finally gives in and creates a completely new currency and everyones current money goes to shit. Adam being good at making money, eventually earns 365000 after a year. Bob isn't good at making money so he still ends up much poorer than Adam once again. Adam is ALWAYS going to be much richer than Bob.
how many times do you think the government should wipe billionaires wealth in order to get a different outcome? is it until YOU become the billionaire instead?
people have different talents. people who are naturally good at singing or football or running or lifting are all amazing and wonderful humans. people who are good at making money are somehow worse than satan for some reason
Which should tell you something about how fake our current economy is.
If you see news posts about one guy gaining $3 billion and one guy losing $4 billion in a day, that should signal to you that something is out of whack.
Especially when neither of them really did anything, and it will have pretty much zero impact on their day.
One billion dollars is already incomprehensible funny money. It’s just not real in any useful sense (other than perceived power). To you and me it would be life changing, but to these guys they gained and lost it in a day while doing nothing, and it is completely irrelevant to their life.
Nothing new was created, and nothing of value was lost. Oracle databases still work, and Facebook isn’t any more or less relevant. Yet a couple thousand people might lose jobs, and a few dozen people might be richer.
I don’t see how this proves the economy is fake…The total market cap of the US stock market is $50 trillion. There are 700+ billionaires residing in the United States. Sure, 4 billion is a lot of money, but there are a lot of people out there and there is a lot of money out there. As far as the stock market not being “real” because it doesn’t produce anything, there are plenty of valuables that do not produce anything but that does not illegitamize the value of anything. It’s all supply and demand. Stocks promise (or at least make probable) future returns, so they do have real value. It works in a future-oriented world like our society where we have a surplus of money at the end of the day. You can spend it all on consumer products or set it somewhere where it can grow. It all works out. Until it doesn’t then we’re all screwed but we’ll have real more immediate concerns than saving for the future.
The particular criticism was not against the intrinsic value of stock, but rather against the instabilities due to speculative values, as well as the further resulting instabilities that have important consequences for individuals, disempowering them in their own lives.
Ellison is worth an estimated $180 BILLION. So let’s pretend those “losses” were realized and he actually lost $4.2 billion, he still has a net worth of $175 BILLION DOLLARS. I’m pretty sure he’ll be just fine. Such a false equivalency.
It has no academic definition. You can find percentages ranging from 40% to 80% because of this fact and its incredibly easy to get whatever number you want out of it. I understand that most people are aware of the concept of living paycheck to paycheck and more concrete economic data doesn't spark as well but I would recommend not basing any opinions on the economy on reports on people living paycheck to paycheck and checking the methodology of stats that seem extreme to you. Its also worth noting that living paycheck to paycheck isn't necessarily a big deal. Most people need to work to maintain their standard of living but this doesn't mean that your standard of living is bad or that you don't make enough, its fairly common when you are young and buying houses, paying for school. and starting families to not have a large savings account.
We aren’t sending money to Ukraine. We are sending billions in stockpiled weapons that are nearing their expiration dates. Weird to me that people don’t know this.
Not only that, but the money that is being "sent oversees" for weapons is really being paid to mostly domestic industry to make newer weapons to refill our stockpiles. These weapons, if not used, would otherwise cost money to dispose of. So do we want to pay to throw our old weapons in the garbage or do we want to give them away and pay for new ones?
Uhm… your part right. It appears a lot more of the money is going towards weapons.
https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12040
https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-us-aid-going-ukraine#:~:text=From%20the%20total%20%24175%20billion,to%20the%20government%20of%20Ukraine.&text=Weapons%20and%20equipment%20are%20provided,and%20Foreign%20Military%20Financing%20Program.
That 100 billion consists largely of existing military equipment or funds already in the military budget that wouldn’t have been seen by civilians anyway
You can make the argument that the money in Ukraine is being used to weaken one of our biggest global adversaries. Not saying that's more important than paycheck to paycheck workers, but supporting global military security is important.
Yeah, I'd say not allowing Russia to turn Ukraine into the next Poland is a pretty worthy endeavor. Don't appease tyrants, they don't stop until you make them.
Yeah bro it’s called not wanting Russia to have an infinite ability to conquer its neighbors with zero repercussions. Guaranteeing the sovereignty of countries is pretty important for world peace. Also do you really think if we didn’t send those weapons congress would all of a sudden be passing bills left and right to fix that problem? We have an insane amount of political gridlock right now thank god we could even convince enough republicans to stand up for Ukraine.
To further back up your point, most of the money is in the form of weapons and ammunition that are built in the USA. Restocking those weapons involves hiring and paying American employees to do it. So in effect the sis really goes towards American salaries.
You're complaining that we've severely weakened one of our primary enemies without any deaths to American soldiers for the low, low cost of a few $100b? Most of that money is in equipment, and a lot of that equipment would have needed to be decommissioned soon, which would have cost us money to do. We're sending them our old weapons and watching Russia get demolished in the process, sounds like a good deal to me.
After all, the Iraq War cost us about $120b per year and 4,500 American soldiers' lives.
Do you have a savings account set aside with more than a month or two worth of income? If not, you are living paycheck to paycheck. To put this another way, people don't have a backup plan should a catastrophic financial issue happen. IE, unexpected medical bills or car breaks down, etc.
If 60% of workers in US live paycheck to paycheck, most of them have poor financial planning. I came from dirt poor family, my grandparents saved up money so that we able to go to US/Canada. Those people earned even less money
We live in the most privileged time in the most prosperous nation and we’ve become completely blind to it. Virtually no one in the United States is considered poor by global standards. Yet, in a time where we can order a product off Amazon with one click and have it at our doorstep the next day, we are unappreciative, unsatisfied, and ungrateful.
We have people who are dying to get into our country. People around the world destitute and truly impoverished. Yet, we have a young generation convinced they’ve never seen prosperity, and as a result, elect politicians dead set on taking steps towards abolishing capitalism. Why? The answer is this, my generation has ONLY seen prosperity. We have no contrast. We didn’t live in the great depression, or live through two world wars, or see the rise and fall of socialism and communism. We don’t know what it’s like not to live without the internet, without cars, without smartphones. We don’t have a lack of prosperity problem. We have an entitlement problem, an ungratefulness problem, and it’s spreading like a plague.
Homelessness is drug abuse and mental health. It has absolutely nothing to do with money, unless your stance is to allow drug addicts to absolutely destroy private property and to tell the government to subsidize the behavior.
Every study ever conducted finds that the homelessness happens first. Then the drugs.
The homeless problem is not a drug problem. It's an affordability problem. more than 80% of America's homeless lost their home because of a cashflow problem. A layoff at a bad time, a big expense they couldn't avoid and then get evicted.
People like to fool themselves into thinking the homeless brough it on themselves by being criminals and drug addicts so that they can look down on them and not see them as human. But the reality of the situation is that most people living on the street were just like you and through no fault of their own simply ran out of luck and wound up homeless despite being hard working, and productive.
Oh stop. There are numerous government programs to house people that have lost their source of income. They don't qualify for those programs due to things like drug addiction.
Much of that is true, yet, many Americans fall through the cracks.
Many children go to sleep hungry, malnourished. Many mentally ill people wonder the streets don't have access to free mental health care. People who are aren't mentally ill exist that can't afford shelter and don't have access/space to a shelter.
Many people are just one or two paychecks away from being on the street and hungry. Internet and Amazon would be irrelevant to these scenarios.
I feel like this is the red herring argument to all this.
An opaque appeal to emotion. Would taxing the billionaires and taking all their money really solve what you are worried about? That’s the question you need to think about.
Economically imo it would be a disaster. The only true antidote to poverty has been economic prosperity. Right now the vaunted “socialist” paradises of Europe are having to cut taxes on the rich to try to encourage growth as their material wellbeing has stalled compared to the us.
There isn’t some magic bullet that if you just care enough or throw someone else’s money around that it will be the best solution to fix these issues.
Honestly, I obviously am no expert on social services or public administration.
Yes, of course just taxation doesn't solve these problems; however, I think society CAN decide that it's valuable that no person should be forced to sleep in the cold, out on the street; in the same way hospitals EDs doesn't turn away people for lack of money.
As far as I know, America is extraordinarily prosperous, I think we just don't care to prioritize mental health care, drug abuse - as a medical problem, or education.
San Francisco has dumped a billion dollars into solving the homeless problem this last year. +$58,000 dollars per homeless person per year.
They have decided it’s of utmost importance. Yet the results are the same.
Unless you can prove results I think this tax the rich and solve every issue is just nonsense political speak at best and at worst it’s corruption and cynical political class warfare
I agree that taxation and spending doesn't magically fix an issue. Also, I don't think it's "utmost importance", just because of expenditure, otherwise proponents would hold the programs accountable.
I think there were some programs in NYC that used tax funds for shelters run by a corporation and friend of lawmakers. It was an obvious waste/squandering of money.
There are dumb charities and smart charities.
Europe has stalled because we are caught in a situation where we don't want to produce anything, because it is making a mess and uses fossil fuels, while investing in a hydrogen dream economy and importing much of the goods.
More or less taxing the rich is not going to matter here
In 2022, **America's billionaires (735 people) owned $4.5 trillion of the country's wealth**. The **bottom 50%** of American households **(170,000,000 people)** **owned $4.1 trillion of the country's wealth**, according to the [Federal Reserve](https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/table/).The **richest 1% of Americans own $43.45 trillion.**
We don't have to tax the billionaires till they become destitute but **we can close off taxation loopholes** and **increase the corporate tax rate to** **30%**, so the **government has more money to spend on social services**.
[74% of the federal budget](https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/) is spent on social goods like subsidized healthcare, social security, education, and infrastructure so we can spend more on these important programs that lift people out of destitution
Just so you know, the other 26% is spent on paying off interest rates and the military
I see this posted a lot but it really means nothing on its face. The vast majority of that wealth is invested in American companies. Those companies are driving economic growth.
Fine change the tax code - but I think to close the loop you need to understand that that wealth is not in a vault somewhere in the form of gold bars - it is a tradeoff if you increase taxation.
The second portion of this is taxing billionaires/the rich doesn't get you anywhere in terms of the large scale social programs you are talking about. 3.2 trillion per year for medicare for all alone. 1.5 trillion for social security.
The dirty secret nobody wants to confront is that Europe has a much less progressive tax system than the US. They tax the middle class/lower class at a much higher rate relative to us. This creates a much bigger tax base to cover social programs. If we want to go that route- fine - but lets at least be honest about the tradeoffs.
The math does not work saying we can tax the rich and fix our problems. What this is a political sleight of hand to create the illusion of potential free stuff with no cost. My worry is you actually get someone who ignores reality and does what they say they will do. You will skyrocket federal debt (ie more inflation), you will hurt economic growth and you will increase benefits marginally which will be offset by inflation.
as elon musk said
immigration is a privilege, not a human right (something like that) yes its good to let good people into our great country but you NEED to also weeed out the bad eggs
you literally need a fucking high school diploma just to move to japan and or something that shows you have value and can contribute to their society
thats how mother fucking immigration works the right way man
you need more than that to move to Japan. Plus, you need to actually be a contributing member of society else you'll get deported. And there are limits to how high you can go because their upper class is reserved for their own citizens. Outsiders are currently treated as second class. Not to say that they are afforded less rights, but moreso that you will be blocked from upper echelon opportunities even if you meet the required criteria.
But this begs the question, should a human being really have that much wealth? I think people really don’t understand the difference between a million and a billion.
We see these numbers thrown around all the time without really thinking about the amount.
If someone who makes 100k a year (very good in the US) saved every dollar, it would take 10 years for them to be “a millionaire”. If they wanted to be a billionaire, they would need to save every dollar for TEN THOUSAND YEARS. Someone would have to work two million years making 100k a year to accumulate Jeff Bezos net worth.
For one human being to have the control over that amount of money is, quite frankly, insane. It’s not needed and that money CAN and SHOULD be used to help better the human race. And I don’t just mean the borders of United States, I mean the human race as a whole.
So yes, just because we have smart phones and aren’t homeless, doesn’t mean we should be scraping by and counting our lucky stars we aren’t eating dirt in some third world nation. We are ALL eating scraps thrown to us by people who literally run the world. It’s disgusting that this is what the human race has turned into.
Yeah and you sound like a major fucking boot licker. I work 50 hours every week in CNC and I’m still barely making it by, I live alone and some weeks I wonder how I’m going to afford groceries for myself.
It’s not a matter of we have it better than the rest of the world, it’s that less than 100 Americans own more wealth than the entire world combined, and our system allows it. Those people should not exsist as it is causing issues for the ENTIRE world.
You might be content underneath the boot of some high end CEO who just bought his 5th yacht this week but I’m not.
I work all these hours THERE IS NO REASON WHY I CANT AFFORD A LIVEABLE WAGE, IM DOING MY FUCKING PART
That is why it is so important to protect it from the fraudulent currency schemes that are stealing our freedom and prosperity.
We have only known fraud and manipulation.
Yeah thats it. Try joining the military and see how good you got it. I never knew how lucky i was till i went third world. Theres countries where 200 million people practice open defecation. Disease, starvation, and bad water. Dont drink out of the river theres a dead guy floating in it. Yeah we have massive entitlement issues. Have a problem with Ukraine or Gaza, enlist. Go see how good mommies basement really is
"An entitlement problem." You are positing that the real problem in America is the working class wanting to live with security in their circumstances rather than billionaires hoarding more wealth? The entitlement that is more damaging is the former in your mind?
Conservative “logic” is truly something to behold.
“We shouldn’t improve anything because other people in other parts of the world have it worse.” Logical fallacy.
“Socialism is bad.” Every first world country on Earth has socialist programs. Medicare, Medicaid, social security, etc are socialist programs. Yet they are incredibly popular. And we still have a capitalist economy.
You turn a blind eye to the problems people face. Nevermind the out of control cost of housing, education, wealth gap, corporate greed, etc. You ignore all of societies problems because that’s what the rich want you to do. Yes, the Conservative party has always been the puppet of the rich.
Fuck yea bro, this is the message that these dumbasses need to hear. Homeless people in America have access to resources that would exceed that of 50% of the population of some impoverished nations in the world. There are countries where workers who actually put in >40 per week don't have the benefits or luxuries given to our nation's homeless through our social welfare and rehabilitation programs.
This coming from the same guy who didn’t want to pay his interns….
After achieving a millionaire status changed his quotes from “millionaire’s and billionaires” to just “billionaires”.
Executive compensation reform! Tie it to employee pay.
Everyone is always bitching about taxing the billionaires, but that won't transfer money to the lower and middle class, that will just transfer it to the government, for better or for worse. Not to say the billionaires shouldn't be taxed more. The super rich definitely need to start paying their fair share. But it you want a to actually impact the economy and the average American, tie executive compensation to employee pay.
Mark Zuckerberg provides a service that people voluntarily pay for and then uses his money the way he wants to. Bernie Sanders generates his income by forcibly stealing it from people that would never pay him money in a million years, and he used that income to buy multiple lake houses and vacation in the literal soviet union. So maybe he shouldn't be accusing anyone of greed unless he's looking into a mirror.
How many times do I have to see this type of posts? I swear I learn more about economics just to prove other people wrong and sometimes I prove myself wrong :(
653000 homeless Americans but let’s allow millions to cross the border illegally. Seriously fix the issues at home before trying to become the hero for the world.
We already waste billions on the homeless crisis and have no clear plans that show results. How does the guy running a global corporation that pays 8.3 billion in income taxes shoulder the blame for shit policies and wasted funds
There is no such thing. There will always be winners and losers. There will always be (and has always been) a lot of people at the bottom, a few above them, and a very few above everyone.
Even communism is bereft with cronyism and nepotism and is corrupted. Russia, North Korea, and China have essentially what comes to be emperors and their citizens are worse off than we are as Americans.
Our country is riddled with corporate cronyism where politicians can be paid for through lobbying like walking into Walmart and getting a 6 pack.
I'm not a billionaire basher at all. These people still do give to charity so there's that. And the focus needs to be on wasteful government spending more than what private citizens do with their money. If people in Congress want to make change, I'd like to see their charity donations and offers to withdraw from publicly funded Congressional healthcare to help save money for the homeless.
[https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/billionaires-who-give-away-most-money-forbes](https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/billionaires-who-give-away-most-money-forbes)
I watched Powells testimony today and it's actually gotten sickening how the GDP data is now being equated to the state of the economy for the people.
Not verbatim, but near enough, "The USA's economic growth and recovery has been much stronger than that of other developed nations and our economy is in a much stronger place."
Like.... Sure, that seems good on the surface, but it may as well be fueled by the slavery of its people. It's like corporate America has succeeded in creating a caste system of indentured servants.
Like him or not, Zuck has created billions of dollars of wealth for himself and others. Meta has 69k highly paid employees.
WTF has Bernie done, besides gaslight?
well to have an economy that works for everyone, everyone has to work. and that means the permanent welfare class would have to get a job. Guess what will never happen?
Bernie can STFU. He’s got 3 homes when most people struggle to have just one, and has never worked an actual job. Just more of his usual riling up the gullible before the election.
We should make regulations on predatory business practices. Instead, Washington makes regulations that empower predatory business practice because it helps them personally. Then they attack “businesses” as a whole and the only businesses that can withstand it are the ones that prey on people and then they ultimately make more because ethical businesses go under and then these crappy businesses are the only game it town. If you need any evidence look no further than the Covid policies. Make policies that protect people instead of just “raising the minimum wage” for example. It seems good, but only makes things cost more.
I've been thinking this for a while now. We need to make wage 2.0 where the ceos and what not can still make the most money but we cap their salary at a x over the lowest paid employee at their company so 25x or 50x whatever. From a quick Google search the average now is around 344x so I think we can go even 100x and they still make ass loads of cash but the lowest employees are still very well compensated.
Yes because advertising money Facebook makes that benefits Zuckerberg is so stronglt correlated with the actors that cause the value of labor that causes people to live paycheck to paycheck.
I feel like its freakonomics with some of these posts.
I would have loved to have seen Bernie get up for the 2020 elections instead of the dementia riddled turd we got. Bernie is one of the few politicians who isn't absolute trash.
But... Bernie... that 100 million mansion put AT LEAST 50 US citizens to work... you know, building shyte and ordering overpriced "specialty" shyte from third world countries that pay slave labor wages to hundreds of exploited workers toiling for pennies and peanuts and the 1 or 2 company owners pocket most of the money. Trickle down mother fucker... thats how it works. Who cares that that 100 mill potentially translates to 2000 $50,000/year jobs (dont jump down my throats bastards... I know thats for only one year).
More nonsense. There is no such thing as an "economy that works for everyone". A much more interesting metric is an economy that works for everyone who participates in the economy. By this metric, the US is superior to most places in the world. Most homeless are addicts, have phycological issues, and physical impairments. Frequently, all of the above. That is what charity is for, which we all support. There should be a substantial safety net and there is. But the fate of these folks IS NOT a measure of the viability of the economy.
By this same logic, the extraordinary success of a handful of Billionaires tells us nothing about the economy. To simplify, what does analyzing Labron James' skills at basketball say about me? Nothing. Ok, maybe it says I suck at basketball.
It doesn't have to work equally for everyone to work for everyone.
Someone working full time, minimum wage, should be able to afford a small studio and basic groceries and have health care. And unfortunately, this isn't the case right now.
Working full time should be enough to not have to be homeless, hungry, and without medicine you need at minimum.
Having better jobs that pay more should give access to *luxuries*. Bigger houses, vacation trips etc...
MZ isn't the cause of homelessness or inflation. The federal government is. The same federal government that Bernie has been working in for the last 40+ years.
Is the Zuck responsible for the populace? My understanding is that Meta employees are paid living wages if not better. The problem here is capitalism itself, which often over-rewards some winners and underpays everyone else. Which is why billionaires should be taxed 90% and given the Capitalist trophy. A market system that creates 1 gazzilionaire & 99 paupers is unsustainable.
So either Bernie doesn’t understand how economies work or he’s intentionally using misleading statistics.
So first off you can’t analyze how much richer billionaires become every day because normally their wealth is 70-90% stocks, which while the average out to increasing over time they fluctuate in value every day and some days you make money and some days you lose money. You need to analyze these kinds of wealth over a long period of time, not just a single day.
Second off wouldn’t building a house be beneficial to the workers building it? We should be encouraging more spending from billionaires since that means their money flows through the economy, buying/building expensive stuff is often how money flows down.
Thirdly that point about workers living pay check to pay check is just wrong. A survey conducted by payroll.org that only surveyed around 30,000 people found that around 60% said it would be difficult to meet their financial obligations if their paycheck was delayed a week. This is no where near the number of people need to make generalized claims about over 300 million people. On top of that if you at median income this would mean that people making over $70,000+ a year would be living paycheck to paycheck, which just not true unless they are choosing to do so. This is why we have actual ways of measuring low income like the poverty line and don’t just use a random survey asking less than 1% of our population a question.
Now I just want to make it clear, I’m not trying to defend billionaires here. I’m just calling out this BS argument because a bad argument will only weaken the legitimate criticisms of billionaires.
One that doesn't allow for individuals or corporations to hoard billions of dollars.
Index that to inflation though.
A lot of success at these levels are hard to quantify. But inherently they benefit the most from public efforts such as developed skill sets from FAFSA, stable society, public roads/transits, welfare... for those working non-living wages..., etc.
"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
Yah, Mark Zuckerberg is the problem.
The problem definitely isn't the government taking half the workers' paychecks via taxes. Last time I checked Bernie had a few mansions him self....
Zuckerberg is one of the primary reasons democrats get elected, they aren't actually going to bite the hand that feeds them. DNC-party of the rich. Ask Soros, Gates, Zuck, Oprah, Bezos, Fink, and almost all of Hollywood and the media. Look at a map of all the richest counties and how they vote. Are you voting for the same people and laws these uber rich are? Are you being duped into voting yourself into servitude?
Funny reading these comments saying there will be always be losers and winners. That is 100% right, but no loser or loser kid should ever go hungry nor unsure where they will sleep tonight. Loser shouldn’t mean food insecurity. In the richest country in the world that should never happen. It’s of course not because of Zuck, but the system that allows it.
We give so much money to other countries. Can we please prioritize ourself first
You give so much to others? Just how much are you making from them first? The greatest beneficiaries of globalism has been the US. Don’t go thinking that the US navy is some philanthropic endeavour. The US is an economic empire that controls world trade and manipulates it to their advantage at every turn. It’s laughable when people in the US think they can maintain their position in the global world order by retreating into isolationism. Pass the batten, as the British did and watch your power, economy and influence wane.
Truth 175 billion to Ukraine is what they’re referring to. Many think we need to help maintain their sovereignty while others think we’re recklessly sending all of our tax revenue The more likely truth is, we’re destabilizing a potential adverse pocket of power that has the ability to control the resources our stabile allies depend on. Leverage in a global economy and in conflict. We break unpredictable nations at the knee. We’re spending US dollars, but Ukrainian lives. The US does leverage the world currency and has had a negative impact on many nations, but my most rosy shade of cynical considers it a global tax. We provide stability and shelter technological growth.. both are needed if we want to sustainably prevent egomaniacal global disrupters as a human race. We don’t infringe on the policy of nations that play ball
We also aren't sending them cash either. We're sending them discontinued / obsolete/ just plain old equipment worth that much and supplies and ammunition.
We're sending stuff like ATACMS. From the 80s. Meanwhile, every republican voters think we are sending pallets of cash to Zelenskys house.
Exactly right. Plus the military suppliers are making out like bandits
And we get to replace our 40 year old munitions with something modern.. 🤷♂️
Not to mention, we’ve crippled the Army and Navy of the 2nd largest near-peer competitor to the United States. A War with China without the aid of Russia looks much different than with.
Russia will never and has never been in the same League.
No one gave Ukraine. We just paid our defence contractors
Thanks for typing that so I didn't have to. So many miss the bigger picture
We funded a war that completely drained Russia's military forces without having to put a single boot on the ground, in this unstable world stage that's honestly worth every penny. I don't agree with the more shady ways we play shadow games in the rest of the world, but this one was a good play. We hurt the bad guys, and helped the little guys in the process. It's not very often we get to do that.
While there is a lot of truth in this statement, it is worth considering that the stability and technological advancement with no consideration for our future has led us to the point where Zuck thinks a 100 million dollar bunker on an island is a good move for his family. America disrupts the power plays whether the motive is morally righteous or not. One could make the statement that while it's citizens live in an unprecedented time of security and prosperity, it is US who are the egomaniacal global disrupters
Well that strategy has backfired because now 50% of the world's economic output and 75% of the world's population controlling 75% of the world's resources have formed alliances that oppose the United States and our NATO buddies.
People don't understand when they say they are sending X amount in aid, they aren't sending that in money. The vast majority of it is in the form of military and civilian hardware worth that much money.
100% agree. It’s not helping inflation either so they give the money to other countries, yet in the homeland let people suffer. “Too bad should have been born rich, orherwise pull yourself up by the bootstraps.
Inflation is primarily domestic money supply, so it depends how other countries are receiving such money
Inflation is tied to the total amount of dollars printed. The U.S. isn't in isolation.
No. That’s not the problem. Part of our security comes from projecting both hard and soft power. Reinstate the Eisenhower tax rates.
I agree lower the federal revenue as a percentage of GDP and give everyone tax cuts, or do you think Eisenhower's tax code took more because you only look at the pre-deduction, cut, and incentive percentage and stop all thought after that? Eisenhower oversaw the 4th and 5th lowest years of tax revenue as a percentage of GDP since 44 and averaged far lower rates than we have since 2014 (we had the 3rd highest level in 2022 only beaten by 1945 [1st] and 2000 [2nd]). Can we also return to the budgetary breakdown? It would nearly cut spending by half which is the actual issue as we currently spend 150+% of the federal revenue annually.
Saying that Eisenhower had the 4th and 5th lowest is a bit deceptive, isn't it? Seeing as how the lowest his presidency saw was 13%, sticking at the average of 15% for 6 of his 8 years, he's like every other president; one weirdly high or low year and three at 15%. Saying that, who told you Eisenhower cut taxes? He famously refused tax cuts requested by his party in favor of balancing the budget. The reason the tax vs GDP works out the way it does has more to do with having higher output, not reduced input. He instituted extremely high tax rates for the upper and corporate classes, not a universal 91% as some say but still high as hell, at a time when the IRS was funded to perform it's responsibilities. People paid their taxes, and it earned us a 0.4% surplus.
False dichotomy. We do prioritize ourself. We don't give money to other countries out of pure benevolence.
That money is primarily bribery in legal and ethical form. We fund Ukraine, for example, not because we love Ukraine but because if Russia actually wins their war, then other countries are next. We prefer to keep Russia where they are. Realistically, most countries we aid are situations in which we *need* something from them. Ukraine, South Korea, Japan, etc are glorified meat shields. In other places, we just want to limit cartels and/or terrorism. People like Trump fail to understand that America uses money and soft power *first* to get what we want, then weapons. The former is cheaper, more effective and has less public blowback than dead soldiers.
This comment is pure ignorance. Foreign aid is always *for* domestic goals. It's not charity.
We give a tiny amount of the budget to other countries. About 1%. It’s not that much.
Many of those are loans too.
This is one of the few correct comments on this entire thread. https://www.verifythis.com/article/news/verify/money-verify/united-states-foreign-aid-federal-budget-percentage-fact-check/536-09375bcd-56ec-4296-ac79-afb6ac3dbe78#:~:text=It's%20a%20common%20misperception%20that,It's%20actually%20around%201%25.
so how much and for how long should you pay the crack head down the street for doing nothing?
We should make sure they have food, water, and shelter. Making bad decisions doesn't mean you deserve to die.
The US has more abandon houses than homeless people and cant find the solution to the problem. The attitude here is not conducive to solving cultural issues. You can see why the problem exists reading the thread.
Pretty sure a large majority of those houses are in rural towns with 0 resources and jobs for a homeless person. One of those stats that get thrown around for dystopia circle jerks.
And a lot of the houses are also dilapidated and can't be lived in. And all of what we both noted goes without mentioning that homeless people also can't pay to take care of the houses and will in many cases destroy them with graffiti and trash.
Do you want that crackhead being housed next to you? The US learned a lesson when they went all in building projects, and that was, when you give things to people with no expectations they do not take care of them.
Sometimes people turn down the shelter because they'd rather have the drugs :/
I see a lot of people saying this but not a lot of data agreeing with it.
Go volunteer at a shelter, plenty of people come for meals but can't or won't stay because they've either done something to get themselves on the no stay list or they refuse to try to get clean. Everyone gets a meal who needs one, just some have to get it to go.
People on here pretending like homeless people are so great at following the few rules needed to access basic services. At some point it’s not a system issue, but that’s difficult for people who believe every society ill is due to a systemic failure rather than an individual one. We can’t force people to help themselves, they have to want it.
If you want to know the dark truth is to reduce homelessness you need to invest more into keeping people off the streets in the first place, second is getting people who’ve just become homeless back on the right track out of it. And for those who have stayed homeless for awhile pretty much forget about. They’ve changed their way of life and are more or less a lost cause.
I think it’s a human right to have a minimum standard of living and healthcare. Nobody is paying anyone for doing nothing, but a safe place to sleep, food and some basic toiletries shouldn’t be withheld from anyone. We can afford it.
Not that I agree with this... But the problem people have with it is that equality means diminishing the value for people who've accomplished that thing. It's the same reason conservative don't want a higher minimum wage, because they equate their salary to their success and if the bottom rung is making similar money, it diminishes what they worked for. Similarly, if you're barely getting by but paying for your apartment and your car to get to work everyday, you're likely to feel upset that some "deadbeat" gets a free apartment and doesn't have to buy a car because they don't work. What needs to change is our mindset, this idea that you need to earn things to feel validated. You see too many people on social media bragging about the shit they buy, like anyone else cares. If we'd all quit trying to keep up with the Jones's and impress others, we'd all be much happier with our lives overall. But it'll never happen; some humans are bullies by nature and will always need to shit on others to find a meaning to their own existence.
Definitely mindset changes. Also being aware that even if you are successful, even in a way that is a true net benefit to society, the amount of things you own, use, like, helped get you there is more contributions than you'll ever generate individually. Not to mention a lot of it does come from the backs of taken advantage of people. Which makes everyone in this thread who thinks they somehow can say the most disadvantaged individuals don't deserve basic necessities just comically evil. I don't care if a rich person has as many yachts as they want as long as any individual has easy access to clean comfortable shelter food and utilities. Which at this point in human history is possible.
0. Fuck the crackhead down the street. Tax the billionaires and cut taxes on middle income Americans who actually work for a living.
How about the government stops spending money we don’t have and still fuck the crackhead?
That also sounds pretty good to me. Easiest place to cut is military/foreign aid. We technically spend more on Medicaid/medicare but I don’t feel good about taking money away from sick poor people.
$100B dollars to politicians pet war in Ukraine would be a great start. I can only imagine the kickbacks coming from all that unaccountable graft.
What taxes aren’t they paying?
? Right now there aren’t any taxes that they aren’t paying because we don’t tax them because our legislatures are fucktards. We should be levying a wealth tax on publicly traded equities over some threshold. $100m, $500m $1bln idk. Plenty of other countries have a wealth tax. We should have one too.
Doesn’t work. Europe already abandoned this crap idea. Focus on big stuff:Close loopholes. Simple example. IMO has billions in a tax free account. PayPal pay off. Limit these accounts to a sum, say 5 mill and force them to withdraw and pay up. Same for Pete Theile as he did this too
0 to that person. But I’d like to have some programs in place to get them clean, educated, trained, etc. By avoiding issues and refusing to spend money on some social programs, we are making the issue bigger and more costly in the future
$1000 / month as long as alive
It wouldn’t go to the people here that need it. It also makes sure our interests are looked after at a much lower price tag. If you don’t spend money on diplomacy you have to buy more bullets. (Paraphrasing) https://www.businessinsider.com/mattis-state-department-funding-need-to-buy-more-ammunition-2017-2?amp
The problem with that is, one party in particular is the one stopping us from helping us. We can afford to do both.
That’s actually wrong call. If we become isolationist our internal stance will crumble soon as well.
https://concernusa.org/news/foreign-aid-explained/ No we don't. It's about 1%. The reason we have people homeless and starving is 100% because it Republicans starve the beast a strategy to convince people not to vote to spend on our own people. We have to money and resources to do anything we want. We choose not to do it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starve_the_beast
"There will always be some inequality, so we shouldn't care about the level of inequality no matter how extreme" - People who do not understand nuance
I think it's a George Carlin bit that goes something like the homeless and poor are kept around and almost put on display to keep the middle and lower classes working, fearing that could be them and their family otherwise.
Realistically most people who become homeless don't stay that way, they transition in and out and that's that. But a good chunk of people never transition out and a good chunk of them just don't want to give up their free nomadic lifestyle. There's probably always a couple hundred thousand ppl who really don't want employment and responsibilities to the degree they'll choose homelessness. I'm not sure we should really try to stop them too much. I would compare the US homeless RATE per 100k to other nations to get a more realistic idea if it's a US problem or within the threshold of normal AND THEN worry about using it as proof of something. This way you pick issues that are easier to prove and fix vs just wishing every problem was a simple as conservative blocking it. Like National Healthcare is proven to work around the world and save a lot of money, we can compare our nation to others and see that. Same goes with homelessness rate per 100k.
It’s important to distinguish homelessness from poverty. People employed but living near or below the poverty line in this country are setting records for obesity because of the availability of cheap, calorie dense food. Homelessness isn’t just poverty, it’s often a blend of mental illness and substance abuse. Poor people here are the most food secure poor people in the history of the planet.
Imagine a tribe where one guy kills the deer, one person collects the berries, one person builds the houses, and then they give a single person the authority to divide the resources produced evenly among the population. Then, that same guy keeps 99% for himself and gives 1% back to his tribe. I think that guy would be invited to dinner that night.
You just defined the middle ages and prior - also loosely how most Marxist states have ended up. Marxism is really just feudalism with a new set of lords and kings.
Literally what is happening under capitalism "this is what is going to happen under marxism guys!!!" Its here, its already happening.
Today Larry Ellison lost $4.2 billion, is Bernie going to post about that???
Oh shit, I hope he finds it. I'd hate to misplace that much money.
Trust me, Larry didn't even notice.
I don’t trust you for shit. Anybody would notice $4 billion. (in reality, it’s all in the stock market which changes day to day)
Poor choice of words, I don't expect you to trust me at all.
Ahh yes the billionaire sympathist has entered the chat
Ah yes the commenter under the dumb billionaire post who comments “BOOTLICKER” if you call out a dumb billionaire post. Queue if you took away every billionaires wealth completely today it would fund the government for x amount of days. It’s the same convo every single post.
Those people are ironically bootlickers too, same people calling the "billionaire apologists" bootlickers will continue to tell you how there should be 100% tax after x amount of wealth etc....ironically bootlickers themselves, but for the state. Too dumb to see the irony though
Its how equity works
People here don't know what that means.
It’s not sympathy, it’s that this argument is dumb and tiring. Talk about realistic taxing.
Adam is good at earning money so he's rich as hell. let's say he has the ability to earn 1000 dollars per day. Bob is pretty mediocre so he's struggling. let's say he earns 100 dollars per day. people start rioting and the government finally gives in and creates a completely new currency and everyones current money goes to shit. Adam being good at making money, eventually earns 365000 after a year. Bob isn't good at making money so he still ends up much poorer than Adam once again. Adam is ALWAYS going to be much richer than Bob. how many times do you think the government should wipe billionaires wealth in order to get a different outcome? is it until YOU become the billionaire instead? people have different talents. people who are naturally good at singing or football or running or lifting are all amazing and wonderful humans. people who are good at making money are somehow worse than satan for some reason
Which should tell you something about how fake our current economy is. If you see news posts about one guy gaining $3 billion and one guy losing $4 billion in a day, that should signal to you that something is out of whack. Especially when neither of them really did anything, and it will have pretty much zero impact on their day. One billion dollars is already incomprehensible funny money. It’s just not real in any useful sense (other than perceived power). To you and me it would be life changing, but to these guys they gained and lost it in a day while doing nothing, and it is completely irrelevant to their life. Nothing new was created, and nothing of value was lost. Oracle databases still work, and Facebook isn’t any more or less relevant. Yet a couple thousand people might lose jobs, and a few dozen people might be richer.
I don’t see how this proves the economy is fake…The total market cap of the US stock market is $50 trillion. There are 700+ billionaires residing in the United States. Sure, 4 billion is a lot of money, but there are a lot of people out there and there is a lot of money out there. As far as the stock market not being “real” because it doesn’t produce anything, there are plenty of valuables that do not produce anything but that does not illegitamize the value of anything. It’s all supply and demand. Stocks promise (or at least make probable) future returns, so they do have real value. It works in a future-oriented world like our society where we have a surplus of money at the end of the day. You can spend it all on consumer products or set it somewhere where it can grow. It all works out. Until it doesn’t then we’re all screwed but we’ll have real more immediate concerns than saving for the future.
The particular criticism was not against the intrinsic value of stock, but rather against the instabilities due to speculative values, as well as the further resulting instabilities that have important consequences for individuals, disempowering them in their own lives.
Ellison is worth an estimated $180 BILLION. So let’s pretend those “losses” were realized and he actually lost $4.2 billion, he still has a net worth of $175 BILLION DOLLARS. I’m pretty sure he’ll be just fine. Such a false equivalency.
You missed their point. Bernie is acting like unrealized gains are actual gains, so why doesn’t he think unrealized losses are actual losses?
https://preview.redd.it/p505bfhzhkbd1.jpeg?width=450&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e33fef44ca970aca5f635c81c9c4c7fa63ffe75b
He still has food and shelter though, right?
60% of workers live paycheck to paycheck but 100 billions for military aid to Ukraine is more important is seems.
Paycheck to paycheck is such a bad metric. It could mean you’re not paid enough for the area you live or it could mean you have bad spending habits.
It has no academic definition. You can find percentages ranging from 40% to 80% because of this fact and its incredibly easy to get whatever number you want out of it. I understand that most people are aware of the concept of living paycheck to paycheck and more concrete economic data doesn't spark as well but I would recommend not basing any opinions on the economy on reports on people living paycheck to paycheck and checking the methodology of stats that seem extreme to you. Its also worth noting that living paycheck to paycheck isn't necessarily a big deal. Most people need to work to maintain their standard of living but this doesn't mean that your standard of living is bad or that you don't make enough, its fairly common when you are young and buying houses, paying for school. and starting families to not have a large savings account.
Exactly. You could earn 200k and still live paycheck to paycheck. It means pretty much nothing.
We aren’t sending money to Ukraine. We are sending billions in stockpiled weapons that are nearing their expiration dates. Weird to me that people don’t know this.
Not only that, but the money that is being "sent oversees" for weapons is really being paid to mostly domestic industry to make newer weapons to refill our stockpiles. These weapons, if not used, would otherwise cost money to dispose of. So do we want to pay to throw our old weapons in the garbage or do we want to give them away and pay for new ones?
Uhm… your part right. It appears a lot more of the money is going towards weapons. https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF12040 https://www.cfr.org/article/how-much-us-aid-going-ukraine#:~:text=From%20the%20total%20%24175%20billion,to%20the%20government%20of%20Ukraine.&text=Weapons%20and%20equipment%20are%20provided,and%20Foreign%20Military%20Financing%20Program.
> Weird to me that people don’t know this. They do. They obfuscation of the truth and straight up gaslighting is a feature, not a bug.
That 100 billion consists largely of existing military equipment or funds already in the military budget that wouldn’t have been seen by civilians anyway
You can make the argument that the money in Ukraine is being used to weaken one of our biggest global adversaries. Not saying that's more important than paycheck to paycheck workers, but supporting global military security is important.
Yeah, I'd say not allowing Russia to turn Ukraine into the next Poland is a pretty worthy endeavor. Don't appease tyrants, they don't stop until you make them.
Lotta people don't know so much about WW2. If they did they'd understand how thin the thread that holds society and humanity together really is.
Yeah bro it’s called not wanting Russia to have an infinite ability to conquer its neighbors with zero repercussions. Guaranteeing the sovereignty of countries is pretty important for world peace. Also do you really think if we didn’t send those weapons congress would all of a sudden be passing bills left and right to fix that problem? We have an insane amount of political gridlock right now thank god we could even convince enough republicans to stand up for Ukraine.
To further back up your point, most of the money is in the form of weapons and ammunition that are built in the USA. Restocking those weapons involves hiring and paying American employees to do it. So in effect the sis really goes towards American salaries.
That is a survey. 50% of Americans earning over $100,000 a year say they live paycheck to paycheck.
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You're complaining that we've severely weakened one of our primary enemies without any deaths to American soldiers for the low, low cost of a few $100b? Most of that money is in equipment, and a lot of that equipment would have needed to be decommissioned soon, which would have cost us money to do. We're sending them our old weapons and watching Russia get demolished in the process, sounds like a good deal to me. After all, the Iraq War cost us about $120b per year and 4,500 American soldiers' lives.
Do you have a savings account set aside with more than a month or two worth of income? If not, you are living paycheck to paycheck. To put this another way, people don't have a backup plan should a catastrophic financial issue happen. IE, unexpected medical bills or car breaks down, etc.
Better than living ruble to ruble. Fuck Russia.
If 60% of workers in US live paycheck to paycheck, most of them have poor financial planning. I came from dirt poor family, my grandparents saved up money so that we able to go to US/Canada. Those people earned even less money
We live in the most privileged time in the most prosperous nation and we’ve become completely blind to it. Virtually no one in the United States is considered poor by global standards. Yet, in a time where we can order a product off Amazon with one click and have it at our doorstep the next day, we are unappreciative, unsatisfied, and ungrateful. We have people who are dying to get into our country. People around the world destitute and truly impoverished. Yet, we have a young generation convinced they’ve never seen prosperity, and as a result, elect politicians dead set on taking steps towards abolishing capitalism. Why? The answer is this, my generation has ONLY seen prosperity. We have no contrast. We didn’t live in the great depression, or live through two world wars, or see the rise and fall of socialism and communism. We don’t know what it’s like not to live without the internet, without cars, without smartphones. We don’t have a lack of prosperity problem. We have an entitlement problem, an ungratefulness problem, and it’s spreading like a plague.
Is it entitlement or ungratefulness causing the homelessness?
How much of it is due to our mental hospitals being closed and substance abuse epidemic?
Homelessness is drug abuse and mental health. It has absolutely nothing to do with money, unless your stance is to allow drug addicts to absolutely destroy private property and to tell the government to subsidize the behavior.
Every study ever conducted finds that the homelessness happens first. Then the drugs. The homeless problem is not a drug problem. It's an affordability problem. more than 80% of America's homeless lost their home because of a cashflow problem. A layoff at a bad time, a big expense they couldn't avoid and then get evicted. People like to fool themselves into thinking the homeless brough it on themselves by being criminals and drug addicts so that they can look down on them and not see them as human. But the reality of the situation is that most people living on the street were just like you and through no fault of their own simply ran out of luck and wound up homeless despite being hard working, and productive.
Oh stop. There are numerous government programs to house people that have lost their source of income. They don't qualify for those programs due to things like drug addiction.
Beautifully said
Much of that is true, yet, many Americans fall through the cracks. Many children go to sleep hungry, malnourished. Many mentally ill people wonder the streets don't have access to free mental health care. People who are aren't mentally ill exist that can't afford shelter and don't have access/space to a shelter. Many people are just one or two paychecks away from being on the street and hungry. Internet and Amazon would be irrelevant to these scenarios.
I feel like this is the red herring argument to all this. An opaque appeal to emotion. Would taxing the billionaires and taking all their money really solve what you are worried about? That’s the question you need to think about. Economically imo it would be a disaster. The only true antidote to poverty has been economic prosperity. Right now the vaunted “socialist” paradises of Europe are having to cut taxes on the rich to try to encourage growth as their material wellbeing has stalled compared to the us. There isn’t some magic bullet that if you just care enough or throw someone else’s money around that it will be the best solution to fix these issues.
Honestly, I obviously am no expert on social services or public administration. Yes, of course just taxation doesn't solve these problems; however, I think society CAN decide that it's valuable that no person should be forced to sleep in the cold, out on the street; in the same way hospitals EDs doesn't turn away people for lack of money. As far as I know, America is extraordinarily prosperous, I think we just don't care to prioritize mental health care, drug abuse - as a medical problem, or education.
San Francisco has dumped a billion dollars into solving the homeless problem this last year. +$58,000 dollars per homeless person per year. They have decided it’s of utmost importance. Yet the results are the same. Unless you can prove results I think this tax the rich and solve every issue is just nonsense political speak at best and at worst it’s corruption and cynical political class warfare
I agree that taxation and spending doesn't magically fix an issue. Also, I don't think it's "utmost importance", just because of expenditure, otherwise proponents would hold the programs accountable. I think there were some programs in NYC that used tax funds for shelters run by a corporation and friend of lawmakers. It was an obvious waste/squandering of money. There are dumb charities and smart charities.
Europe has stalled because we are caught in a situation where we don't want to produce anything, because it is making a mess and uses fossil fuels, while investing in a hydrogen dream economy and importing much of the goods. More or less taxing the rich is not going to matter here
In 2022, **America's billionaires (735 people) owned $4.5 trillion of the country's wealth**. The **bottom 50%** of American households **(170,000,000 people)** **owned $4.1 trillion of the country's wealth**, according to the [Federal Reserve](https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/distribute/table/).The **richest 1% of Americans own $43.45 trillion.** We don't have to tax the billionaires till they become destitute but **we can close off taxation loopholes** and **increase the corporate tax rate to** **30%**, so the **government has more money to spend on social services**. [74% of the federal budget](https://fiscaldata.treasury.gov/americas-finance-guide/federal-spending/) is spent on social goods like subsidized healthcare, social security, education, and infrastructure so we can spend more on these important programs that lift people out of destitution Just so you know, the other 26% is spent on paying off interest rates and the military
I see this posted a lot but it really means nothing on its face. The vast majority of that wealth is invested in American companies. Those companies are driving economic growth. Fine change the tax code - but I think to close the loop you need to understand that that wealth is not in a vault somewhere in the form of gold bars - it is a tradeoff if you increase taxation. The second portion of this is taxing billionaires/the rich doesn't get you anywhere in terms of the large scale social programs you are talking about. 3.2 trillion per year for medicare for all alone. 1.5 trillion for social security. The dirty secret nobody wants to confront is that Europe has a much less progressive tax system than the US. They tax the middle class/lower class at a much higher rate relative to us. This creates a much bigger tax base to cover social programs. If we want to go that route- fine - but lets at least be honest about the tradeoffs. The math does not work saying we can tax the rich and fix our problems. What this is a political sleight of hand to create the illusion of potential free stuff with no cost. My worry is you actually get someone who ignores reality and does what they say they will do. You will skyrocket federal debt (ie more inflation), you will hurt economic growth and you will increase benefits marginally which will be offset by inflation.
as elon musk said immigration is a privilege, not a human right (something like that) yes its good to let good people into our great country but you NEED to also weeed out the bad eggs you literally need a fucking high school diploma just to move to japan and or something that shows you have value and can contribute to their society thats how mother fucking immigration works the right way man
you need more than that to move to Japan. Plus, you need to actually be a contributing member of society else you'll get deported. And there are limits to how high you can go because their upper class is reserved for their own citizens. Outsiders are currently treated as second class. Not to say that they are afforded less rights, but moreso that you will be blocked from upper echelon opportunities even if you meet the required criteria.
People online literally claiming doordash is a basic human right that every person should be able to afford. I shit you not.
But this begs the question, should a human being really have that much wealth? I think people really don’t understand the difference between a million and a billion. We see these numbers thrown around all the time without really thinking about the amount. If someone who makes 100k a year (very good in the US) saved every dollar, it would take 10 years for them to be “a millionaire”. If they wanted to be a billionaire, they would need to save every dollar for TEN THOUSAND YEARS. Someone would have to work two million years making 100k a year to accumulate Jeff Bezos net worth. For one human being to have the control over that amount of money is, quite frankly, insane. It’s not needed and that money CAN and SHOULD be used to help better the human race. And I don’t just mean the borders of United States, I mean the human race as a whole. So yes, just because we have smart phones and aren’t homeless, doesn’t mean we should be scraping by and counting our lucky stars we aren’t eating dirt in some third world nation. We are ALL eating scraps thrown to us by people who literally run the world. It’s disgusting that this is what the human race has turned into.
Yeah and you sound like a major fucking boot licker. I work 50 hours every week in CNC and I’m still barely making it by, I live alone and some weeks I wonder how I’m going to afford groceries for myself. It’s not a matter of we have it better than the rest of the world, it’s that less than 100 Americans own more wealth than the entire world combined, and our system allows it. Those people should not exsist as it is causing issues for the ENTIRE world. You might be content underneath the boot of some high end CEO who just bought his 5th yacht this week but I’m not. I work all these hours THERE IS NO REASON WHY I CANT AFFORD A LIVEABLE WAGE, IM DOING MY FUCKING PART
Beautifully said.
That is why it is so important to protect it from the fraudulent currency schemes that are stealing our freedom and prosperity. We have only known fraud and manipulation.
Yeah thats it. Try joining the military and see how good you got it. I never knew how lucky i was till i went third world. Theres countries where 200 million people practice open defecation. Disease, starvation, and bad water. Dont drink out of the river theres a dead guy floating in it. Yeah we have massive entitlement issues. Have a problem with Ukraine or Gaza, enlist. Go see how good mommies basement really is
"An entitlement problem." You are positing that the real problem in America is the working class wanting to live with security in their circumstances rather than billionaires hoarding more wealth? The entitlement that is more damaging is the former in your mind?
virtually no one yet 600000 people are homeless? are you genuinely stupid?
Purchasing power. If I made my salary in most other countries I’d be living large
Conservative “logic” is truly something to behold. “We shouldn’t improve anything because other people in other parts of the world have it worse.” Logical fallacy. “Socialism is bad.” Every first world country on Earth has socialist programs. Medicare, Medicaid, social security, etc are socialist programs. Yet they are incredibly popular. And we still have a capitalist economy. You turn a blind eye to the problems people face. Nevermind the out of control cost of housing, education, wealth gap, corporate greed, etc. You ignore all of societies problems because that’s what the rich want you to do. Yes, the Conservative party has always been the puppet of the rich.
Fuck yea bro, this is the message that these dumbasses need to hear. Homeless people in America have access to resources that would exceed that of 50% of the population of some impoverished nations in the world. There are countries where workers who actually put in >40 per week don't have the benefits or luxuries given to our nation's homeless through our social welfare and rehabilitation programs.
This coming from the same guy who didn’t want to pay his interns…. After achieving a millionaire status changed his quotes from “millionaire’s and billionaires” to just “billionaires”.
The difference between a billion and a million is about a billion.
He is worth about 3 million dollars. That's not a lot. It's very comfortable retirement level
Executive compensation reform! Tie it to employee pay. Everyone is always bitching about taxing the billionaires, but that won't transfer money to the lower and middle class, that will just transfer it to the government, for better or for worse. Not to say the billionaires shouldn't be taxed more. The super rich definitely need to start paying their fair share. But it you want a to actually impact the economy and the average American, tie executive compensation to employee pay.
End all government subsidies
Starting with gasoline...?
Mark Zuckerberg provides a service that people voluntarily pay for and then uses his money the way he wants to. Bernie Sanders generates his income by forcibly stealing it from people that would never pay him money in a million years, and he used that income to buy multiple lake houses and vacation in the literal soviet union. So maybe he shouldn't be accusing anyone of greed unless he's looking into a mirror.
Obama for 8 years and Biden for 4 years worked to make it fair to eveyone ... or did they? (We already know Trump didn't so he is not in the list)
Bernie, one has nothing to do with the other.
How many times do I have to see this type of posts? I swear I learn more about economics just to prove other people wrong and sometimes I prove myself wrong :(
653000 homeless Americans but let’s allow millions to cross the border illegally. Seriously fix the issues at home before trying to become the hero for the world.
Which one of your three homes are you posting this from?
Wait a minute, I keep hearing that potus has no control over the economy? What the hell is bolshevik Bernie babbling about if he can’t fix it?
We already waste billions on the homeless crisis and have no clear plans that show results. How does the guy running a global corporation that pays 8.3 billion in income taxes shoulder the blame for shit policies and wasted funds
There is no such thing. There will always be winners and losers. There will always be (and has always been) a lot of people at the bottom, a few above them, and a very few above everyone. Even communism is bereft with cronyism and nepotism and is corrupted. Russia, North Korea, and China have essentially what comes to be emperors and their citizens are worse off than we are as Americans. Our country is riddled with corporate cronyism where politicians can be paid for through lobbying like walking into Walmart and getting a 6 pack. I'm not a billionaire basher at all. These people still do give to charity so there's that. And the focus needs to be on wasteful government spending more than what private citizens do with their money. If people in Congress want to make change, I'd like to see their charity donations and offers to withdraw from publicly funded Congressional healthcare to help save money for the homeless. [https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/billionaires-who-give-away-most-money-forbes](https://www.fox13seattle.com/news/billionaires-who-give-away-most-money-forbes)
Bernie Sanders is a multimillionaire...
You can stop buying into envy-based ideologies. You can also stop destroying the buying power of the dollar.
I watched Powells testimony today and it's actually gotten sickening how the GDP data is now being equated to the state of the economy for the people. Not verbatim, but near enough, "The USA's economic growth and recovery has been much stronger than that of other developed nations and our economy is in a much stronger place." Like.... Sure, that seems good on the surface, but it may as well be fueled by the slavery of its people. It's like corporate America has succeeded in creating a caste system of indentured servants.
Term limits
A lot of that 60% is self inflicted. How about we divide up bernie money first. As a stepping stone
Like him or not, Zuck has created billions of dollars of wealth for himself and others. Meta has 69k highly paid employees. WTF has Bernie done, besides gaslight?
well to have an economy that works for everyone, everyone has to work. and that means the permanent welfare class would have to get a job. Guess what will never happen?
Bernie can STFU. He’s got 3 homes when most people struggle to have just one, and has never worked an actual job. Just more of his usual riling up the gullible before the election.
Honest politicians with the best interests of the people in mind; just a fairytale
You can’t call it “working” if you punish the successful.
An economy that works for everyone is an economy where everyone works.
Bernie Sanders posted this on social media
Government needs to spend less is an issue that needs to be addressed for sure.
We should make regulations on predatory business practices. Instead, Washington makes regulations that empower predatory business practice because it helps them personally. Then they attack “businesses” as a whole and the only businesses that can withstand it are the ones that prey on people and then they ultimately make more because ethical businesses go under and then these crappy businesses are the only game it town. If you need any evidence look no further than the Covid policies. Make policies that protect people instead of just “raising the minimum wage” for example. It seems good, but only makes things cost more.
By the government spending what they take in on taxes from hard working Americans
A capitalist economy is terrible... But it's the best option available by a wide margin
I've been thinking this for a while now. We need to make wage 2.0 where the ceos and what not can still make the most money but we cap their salary at a x over the lowest paid employee at their company so 25x or 50x whatever. From a quick Google search the average now is around 344x so I think we can go even 100x and they still make ass loads of cash but the lowest employees are still very well compensated.
Says the guy who owns 3 homes.
Why don’t the other people start a successful company?
Raise the corporate tax rate and cut military spending
And tax churches since they want to politically meddle, and stop corporate lobbying
Couldn’t agree more
Yes because advertising money Facebook makes that benefits Zuckerberg is so stronglt correlated with the actors that cause the value of labor that causes people to live paycheck to paycheck. I feel like its freakonomics with some of these posts.
And how many houses do you have, Bernie? Let’s talk about politician greed.
We get free Facebook, instagram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, threads ect
and in the meantime Biden is giving all of our money to Ukraine and illegal aliens. typical democrat bull shit
What legislation has Bernie made to combat this.
Dang. These comments are depressing.
I would have loved to have seen Bernie get up for the 2020 elections instead of the dementia riddled turd we got. Bernie is one of the few politicians who isn't absolute trash.
does bernie have a facebook account or use instagram..
Just run again please! Biden needs to GTFO
But... Bernie... that 100 million mansion put AT LEAST 50 US citizens to work... you know, building shyte and ordering overpriced "specialty" shyte from third world countries that pay slave labor wages to hundreds of exploited workers toiling for pennies and peanuts and the 1 or 2 company owners pocket most of the money. Trickle down mother fucker... thats how it works. Who cares that that 100 mill potentially translates to 2000 $50,000/year jobs (dont jump down my throats bastards... I know thats for only one year).
More nonsense. There is no such thing as an "economy that works for everyone". A much more interesting metric is an economy that works for everyone who participates in the economy. By this metric, the US is superior to most places in the world. Most homeless are addicts, have phycological issues, and physical impairments. Frequently, all of the above. That is what charity is for, which we all support. There should be a substantial safety net and there is. But the fate of these folks IS NOT a measure of the viability of the economy. By this same logic, the extraordinary success of a handful of Billionaires tells us nothing about the economy. To simplify, what does analyzing Labron James' skills at basketball say about me? Nothing. Ok, maybe it says I suck at basketball.
It doesn't have to work equally for everyone to work for everyone. Someone working full time, minimum wage, should be able to afford a small studio and basic groceries and have health care. And unfortunately, this isn't the case right now. Working full time should be enough to not have to be homeless, hungry, and without medicine you need at minimum. Having better jobs that pay more should give access to *luxuries*. Bigger houses, vacation trips etc...
Why did the commies vote it down today Bozo
Mark Zuckerberg being richer doesn’t make anyone poorer. What a stupid conclusion, stop worrying about other people’s money! Worry about yourself.
Definitely not having it run by people like Bernie who regularly shows their lack of understanding on a grand scale.
His few billions wouldn’t cover a few hours of federal spending
MZ isn't the cause of homelessness or inflation. The federal government is. The same federal government that Bernie has been working in for the last 40+ years.
Unionization is the only way.
How many homes does Bernie have now?
We have the same economy that we’ve always had it’s just that people don’t wanna work like they used to.
Zuck is not the reason those people are poor.
How did an avowed socialist come to have three homes and be worth millions???
Is the Zuck responsible for the populace? My understanding is that Meta employees are paid living wages if not better. The problem here is capitalism itself, which often over-rewards some winners and underpays everyone else. Which is why billionaires should be taxed 90% and given the Capitalist trophy. A market system that creates 1 gazzilionaire & 99 paupers is unsustainable.
So either Bernie doesn’t understand how economies work or he’s intentionally using misleading statistics. So first off you can’t analyze how much richer billionaires become every day because normally their wealth is 70-90% stocks, which while the average out to increasing over time they fluctuate in value every day and some days you make money and some days you lose money. You need to analyze these kinds of wealth over a long period of time, not just a single day. Second off wouldn’t building a house be beneficial to the workers building it? We should be encouraging more spending from billionaires since that means their money flows through the economy, buying/building expensive stuff is often how money flows down. Thirdly that point about workers living pay check to pay check is just wrong. A survey conducted by payroll.org that only surveyed around 30,000 people found that around 60% said it would be difficult to meet their financial obligations if their paycheck was delayed a week. This is no where near the number of people need to make generalized claims about over 300 million people. On top of that if you at median income this would mean that people making over $70,000+ a year would be living paycheck to paycheck, which just not true unless they are choosing to do so. This is why we have actual ways of measuring low income like the poverty line and don’t just use a random survey asking less than 1% of our population a question. Now I just want to make it clear, I’m not trying to defend billionaires here. I’m just calling out this BS argument because a bad argument will only weaken the legitimate criticisms of billionaires.
One that doesn't allow for individuals or corporations to hoard billions of dollars. Index that to inflation though. A lot of success at these levels are hard to quantify. But inherently they benefit the most from public efforts such as developed skill sets from FAFSA, stable society, public roads/transits, welfare... for those working non-living wages..., etc. "We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both."
Wow maybe he should ya know do something about it.
Yah, Mark Zuckerberg is the problem. The problem definitely isn't the government taking half the workers' paychecks via taxes. Last time I checked Bernie had a few mansions him self....
Zuckerberg is one of the primary reasons democrats get elected, they aren't actually going to bite the hand that feeds them. DNC-party of the rich. Ask Soros, Gates, Zuck, Oprah, Bezos, Fink, and almost all of Hollywood and the media. Look at a map of all the richest counties and how they vote. Are you voting for the same people and laws these uber rich are? Are you being duped into voting yourself into servitude?
I mean, can’t hate. Man used cheat codes.