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> If people lose confidence in the system because of that it’s because they can’t multiply. Elizabeth Warren’s new health plan will cost $50 trillion over ten y

> If people lose confidence in the system because of that it’s because they can’t multiply. Elizabeth Warren’s new health plan will cost $50 trillion over ten years. Middle class Americans make $8 trillion a year, compared to about $130 billion for America’s billionaires. To anyone who might take this as an indication Warren's plan will increase HC spending, if we do nothing average yearly HC spending for the 2020s in the US is going to be over 5T anyway. It was at ~3.65T last year, and growing fast.

macawfish 7y ago
People obsessed with "how will we pay for it" just don't understand. The skewed distribution of wealth creates a situation where people don't have time and energy left over from their hustle to take care of themselves and to take care of each other in basic ways. People are sacrificing to the gods of capitalism. Correcting the skewed distribution of wealth would shift agency back to people to mind the business of living life up close, rather than having their life energy extracted. This is part of a degrowth mindset, and it will freak people out who flee from the shame of not winning, who cannot handle pauses or idle time, who must have control over other peopes' lives. But we can't have those people running this planet into the fire. They're gonna have to learn to be alright.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Consultant32452 7y ago
  >The skewed distribution of wealth creates a situation where people don't have time and energy left over from their hustle to take care of themselves and to take care of each other in basic ways. Can you help me understand this better? Because I see this sentiment often. I'm just gonna do some quick math... Bezos + Gates + Musk + Zuckerberg = let's round up to $300 Billion. Divide that evenly among the 327 million US population. I'd get $917. Do you believe that I will take better care of myself or be a better father in the long run if I get a one-time bonus of $917?
  - oblio 7y ago
    I find it a bit naive that the whole system would work like some sort of highway robbery :-) I'm pretty sure that's not what's meant when people talk of "wealth redistribution". Your argument looks like a strawman to me.
    - Consultant32452 7y ago
      I'm not trying to make an argument, I'm trying to understand what the GP means in practice. I know people sometimes use questions passive aggressively, but that wasn't my intent. A more even distribution of all the wealth looks like people having a few thousand dollars of wealth. Much less if we're equalizing the whole world and not just the US. What are we imagining happens?
      - oblio 7y ago
        I'm from a former Communist state (one of those states that became Communist at Soviet-tank-barrel-point :-) ). So Communism doesn't have much appeal to me. My personal perspective is that equalizing things fully doesn't work. You want incentives to motivate people. However, it's quite amazing what motivates people - after all, for the average billionaire going from $62bn to $63bn isn't really some sort of milestone, unless they somehow surpass some other billionaire. Sometimes the things that motivate people are a lot more fine grained that it seems. So pure financial motivation is rarely the main incentive. On the other hand, such huge imbalances do eat away at democratic principles. My personal opinion is that at some point, companies should be treated as utilities/companies of vital national interest. After all, that's how rich people make most of their money, through shares, not through salaries. So, basically, once a company is taller than X, the country this company is based on gets a certain share of the company, 5%, 10%, 20%, it doesn't matter. I'd also make these shares non-voting. Even better, I'd force these companies to give out a certain percentage of these shares to employees (after all, they're "the people"). We'd have fewer billionaires, we'd have more stable middle class people, we'd have higher state revenues, we'd have less of a disconnect between totally private companies, regular people and governments. As the owner of a company, you have a choice: create a huge company and have to share the spoils or stay small and nimble and have greater control.

macawfish 7y ago

People obsessed with "how will we pay for it" just don't understand. The skewed distribution of wealth creates a situation where people don't have time and energy left over from their hustle to take care of themselves and to take care of each other in basic ways. People are sacrificing to the gods of capitalism. Correcting the skewed distribution of wealth would shift agency back to people to mind the business of living life up close, rather than having their life energy extracted. This is part of a degrowth mindset, and it will freak people out who flee from the shame of not winning, who cannot handle pauses or idle time, who must have control over other peopes' lives. But we can't have those people running this planet into the fire. They're gonna have to learn to be alright.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Consultant32452 7y ago
>The skewed distribution of wealth creates a situation where people don't have time and energy left over from their hustle to take care of themselves and to take care of each other in basic ways. Can you help me understand this better? Because I see this sentiment often. I'm just gonna do some quick math... Bezos + Gates + Musk + Zuckerberg = let's round up to $300 Billion. Divide that evenly among the 327 million US population. I'd get $917. Do you believe that I will take better care of myself or be a better father in the long run if I get a one-time bonus of $917?
- oblio 7y ago
  I find it a bit naive that the whole system would work like some sort of highway robbery :-) I'm pretty sure that's not what's meant when people talk of "wealth redistribution". Your argument looks like a strawman to me.
  - Consultant32452 7y ago
    I'm not trying to make an argument, I'm trying to understand what the GP means in practice. I know people sometimes use questions passive aggressively, but that wasn't my intent. A more even distribution of all the wealth looks like people having a few thousand dollars of wealth. Much less if we're equalizing the whole world and not just the US. What are we imagining happens?
    - oblio 7y ago
      I'm from a former Communist state (one of those states that became Communist at Soviet-tank-barrel-point :-) ). So Communism doesn't have much appeal to me. My personal perspective is that equalizing things fully doesn't work. You want incentives to motivate people. However, it's quite amazing what motivates people - after all, for the average billionaire going from $62bn to $63bn isn't really some sort of milestone, unless they somehow surpass some other billionaire. Sometimes the things that motivate people are a lot more fine grained that it seems. So pure financial motivation is rarely the main incentive. On the other hand, such huge imbalances do eat away at democratic principles. My personal opinion is that at some point, companies should be treated as utilities/companies of vital national interest. After all, that's how rich people make most of their money, through shares, not through salaries. So, basically, once a company is taller than X, the country this company is based on gets a certain share of the company, 5%, 10%, 20%, it doesn't matter. I'd also make these shares non-voting. Even better, I'd force these companies to give out a certain percentage of these shares to employees (after all, they're "the people"). We'd have fewer billionaires, we'd have more stable middle class people, we'd have higher state revenues, we'd have less of a disconnect between totally private companies, regular people and governments. As the owner of a company, you have a choice: create a huge company and have to share the spoils or stay small and nimble and have greater control.