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Imagine an island with 100 people and let's make a reasonable assumption that everyone's occupation contributes positively. Everybody works and is able to live

Imagine an island with 100 people and let's make a reasonable assumption that everyone's occupation contributes positively. Everybody works and is able to live comfortably by trading their products and services. Now imagine an island with 100 million. On this island, some huge fraction of jobs dont contribute positively, or at least value is not > pay. A lot of this comes from anticompetitive markets or from highly regulated ones. Then imagine on that big island, a central bank prints out a significant portion of that island's GDP in cold hard cash and trades it only with Wall St (they could at least buy healthcare, education, housing or food, but they buy bonds or "toxic assets"). Or maybe they make a sneaky argument and claim to buy housing by buying CMOs, MBSs, etc, as a way to hide the fact that they are paying Wall St. Now are the problems anything but obvious?

pesmhey 8y ago
This island also has a group of privileged and unprivileged people, and one of the privileged ones fucked it up so badly that everyone was like, ok let’s see what this other group has got. They talk about universal healthcare and redistribution of wealth to serve everyone better. But it would mean a lot of the traditionally privileged group would have to accept a lower status on the island. So they give a final Hail Mary in the attempt to prevent this, because ultimately, if you’re entire self-worth is based on your privileged status, it doesn’t matter how healthy you are or how good of an outcome you may have. Social hierarchy is powerful. The article only studied whites, for homogeneity. Maybe the good ole days for some, but the world is drastically better today for most of the people living in it than it was in the 40s, or 60s. It might help the entire situation of pride and social hierarchy if people who wear dickies and work with their hands weren’t getting constantly shit on, for no other reason than they wear dickies and work with their hands. Plenty of people in liberal white-guilt circles too whose entire self-worth is built around race - let’s call these people racists.

pesmhey 8y ago

This island also has a group of privileged and unprivileged people, and one of the privileged ones fucked it up so badly that everyone was like, ok let’s see what this other group has got. They talk about universal healthcare and redistribution of wealth to serve everyone better. But it would mean a lot of the traditionally privileged group would have to accept a lower status on the island. So they give a final Hail Mary in the attempt to prevent this, because ultimately, if you’re entire self-worth is based on your privileged status, it doesn’t matter how healthy you are or how good of an outcome you may have. Social hierarchy is powerful. The article only studied whites, for homogeneity. Maybe the good ole days for some, but the world is drastically better today for most of the people living in it than it was in the 40s, or 60s. It might help the entire situation of pride and social hierarchy if people who wear dickies and work with their hands weren’t getting constantly shit on, for no other reason than they wear dickies and work with their hands. Plenty of people in liberal white-guilt circles too whose entire self-worth is built around race - let’s call these people racists.