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that's not the only option. you can strengthen the unions and amass power in yet another organization, or you can disperse the power of corporations to better e

that's not the only option. you can strengthen the unions and amass power in yet another organization, or you can disperse the power of corporations to better equalize the footings of the various constituencies. while not against unions prima facie, i'd encourage moderating power structures as the first-order solution over building new ones. societies should be people-first and power structures second (or third, or whatever).

mdkrkeo9 6y ago
You mean have them pay taxes It doesn’t need to be wrapped in technical jargon, y’all Aristotle wrote about this shit 2,000 years ago This isn’t new territory to society Look at tax rates between WW2 & Reagan and the growth in the wealth of the middle class during the same period Ffs just accept it: you’ve been lied to so long you’ve come to believe the lie about taxes Political unrest at every point along the path of building human society is centered around gross material inequality Stop bloviating at your screen as mom & dad did when Dan Rather would say something stupid and get to work solving these problems All I see is people creating a market for more of the same prioritizing rich grandpas demands Rather than follow Andreessen, the next generation should have what he had as a kid: higher taxes funneling shit tons of resources into local communities to evolve as the people need, not as finance market speculators dictate Pitter patter
- johndubchak 6y ago
  Let's get 'atter.
- bhupy 6y ago
  > Look at tax rates between WW2 & Reagan and the growth in the wealth of the middle class during the same period Are you talking about income taxes? Because, yes you're right that Federal income taxes are nowhere near what they were post-WW2, but... > and the growth in the wealth of the middle class during the same period ...the wealth of the upper class has grown to historic levels because the vast VAST majority of upper-class wealth right now (top 0.1%) is 1) in unrealized capital gains, and 2) once capital gains are realized, they are taxed at the same rate that they were all the way up until the 70's, where it spent a brief decade moderately higher than it is today. Bezos doesn't have $100B+ sitting around in a checking account, and a WW2-era marginal tax rate wouldn't really raise as much as you think it would. Most of the richest billionaires have a salary of $1.
  - sudosysgen 6y ago
    Bezos doesn't have 100B$ sitting on a bank account, but he has a low-interest high throughput equity line against his hare portfolio that means that if he wants to cut a 5 billion dollar cheque in the next 30 minutes, he can. Which is pretty damn close to having 100B$ sitting around. If he did pay a high tax rate every time he realized his gains in any way or tapped his equity through a financial instrument, I think things would be much better. But right now Bezos can pay a realized tax rate of under 20% if he wants.
    - bhupy 6y ago
      Yes, these billionaires take collateralized loans, but that doesn't change the fact that they will eventually HAVE to pay taxes. At some point, Bezos has to realize some gain somewhere to have cash to pay back the loan — and odds are, that will be taxed as capital gains, the rate for which has been essentially constant since WW2.
      - sudosysgen 6y ago
        Sure, but in practice the actual tax rate for the upper echelon of the world right now is much, much lower than that for common people or for the upper echelon back in WW2.
        bhupy 6y ago
        That's factually incorrect. https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/ https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/
        sudosysgen 6y ago
        That is only factually incorrect if you look at the 1% in terms of households and in terms of income. In reality, a multi-millionaire might not qualify as the top 1% in household income due to their reliance on capital growth instead of straight income. One might see a million dollar increase in net worth, while paying no taxes on it, and then using that million dollar as collateral to help finance more and more growth. The only tax you might end up paying might be capital gains tax of 20%, or even 15%, eventually, while if it was household income you would pay 45% in taxes. The shift of income from dividends to capital gains for the wealthiest is not reflected in your statistics, and so I don't think they can be used to answer my earlier comment. The data in your source indeed does not seem to consider capital gains tax, as they seem to reflect the top tax bracket on average for different states and locales, whereas if capital gains were considered in relation to the state in which they are realized, it would certainly be much lower.
- AnthonyMouse 6y ago
  Real taxes per capita have done nothing but increase since the end of WWII. Taxes as a percent of GDP have been stable while real GDP has increased. There are higher taxes now than there were then. The nominal "high tax rates" paid in the mid 20th century were fictional because nobody actually paid them; the effective rates were no higher than they are now. What's different now is what we spend the money on.
  - google234123 6y ago
    Welfare mostly.
    - piva00 6y ago
      Care to provide a source?
      - google234123 6y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_Uni...
    - blaser-waffle 6y ago
      Welfare was slashed to the bone under Clinton. The largest expansion of gub'mnt care costs was under Bush when he expanded prescription drug care to the elderly. Another $1 Trillion (not Billion, Trillion) is estimated for veterans care for those who were hurt in the endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
      - google234123 6y ago
        Not a year... 1 trillion over 55 years (or what ever it is) isn't that much.
  - specialist 6y ago
    What's the effective tax rate on each quintile? How has proportion of taxes levied from persons vs corporations changed over time?
- wpietri 6y ago
  I'm not opposed, I think it's more urgent to get money out of politics. The amount of time our reps have to spend fundraising is insane. And that money isn't free. Pre-internet, one legitimately needed a lot of money to get a message out to a nation as big as ours. That's no longer true. There are all sorts of ways we could fix this problem. Government-funded elections. Maximum spending limits. Maximum contribution limits. Strong spending disclosure requirements. Real penalties for people who violate spending laws. Requiring all public servants to keep assets in a blind trust. Ending the revolving door. I don't much care which approaches we start with, but I'd love to see us making progress here.
- godzillabrennus 6y ago
  Fix government? Okay. First, corporations and private sector aren’t inherently bad. There is a need to have economic interests in a community heard in politics. They just need a counterbalance like unions have done in the workplace for labor. (Yes, I know unions are a diminished power but their legacy is still strong). Next, let’s stop being penny wise and dollar foolish. Tech bro’s in San Fran make multiples more than people who make life or death decisions. It’s time for elected representatives to be paid commensurate for the seriousness of their jobs so they care about keeping the job and not leaving for a private sector payday they helped create. Term limits aren’t the issue, who these people really work for is. Start pay at $2M / year for a congressperson with $10M a year in capital they can spend on their local community however they want so long as they and their immediate families don’t benefit. Turn the tables on the well monied interest groups. We also need to push for a fourth branch of government. One that has 2 people per state chosen at random (like jury duty) to serve a four year term in DC. This branch will have veto rights over any president being able to sign an executive order or a bill. Imagine how many unpopular EO’s or bills would pass (e.g. net neutrality is killed) if average people had a voice. Also, let’s gut the entire educational system in the country and start over keeping only the actual educators and the real estate as the constants. If you want tomorrow to be better we need an education system that is the envy of the world. We need K-12 to be enough to bring people to an employable level. There is no reason every abled bodies graduate with a fully functioning mind shouldn’t be able to code at least hello world in python.
ken 6y ago
Unions aren't an alternative to corporations. They're a balance for it. This sounds like "Instead of creating a 'Legislature', let's just disperse the power of the 'Executive'." Yeah, how do you plan to do that, without a balance?
- clairity 6y ago
  exactly, they counterbalance. you can either have huge weights balancing each other or small ones. it’s better then to have small ones because power corrupts. it’s why we share power among 3 branches, 50 states and myriad local jurisdictions. civilizations are more resilient against small corruptions of power than large ones. we do it by rolling back the advantages businesses have amassed over the last half century (or providing residents with all of the same advantages). we institute transparency in labor markets, nullify tax advantages and liability shields, equalize the political voice of the populace, hold companies accountable for (excessive) risk-taking, and rectify thousands, maybe millions, more such injustices. is it that hard to imagine?
_bxg1 6y ago
The problem is it's much harder to moderate power structures, because that requires changing them from the inside, which they themselves are incentivized to prevent.
- clairity 6y ago
  that’s true but do we keep digging ourselves further in the hole or do we start metaphorically clubbing our administrators and politicians over the head to make meaningful changes? change takes work and we have to start somewhere. at least our political system has the levers available to make that change, however hard.

mdkrkeo9 6y ago

You mean have them pay taxes It doesn’t need to be wrapped in technical jargon, y’all Aristotle wrote about this shit 2,000 years ago This isn’t new territory to society Look at tax rates between WW2 & Reagan and the growth in the wealth of the middle class during the same period Ffs just accept it: you’ve been lied to so long you’ve come to believe the lie about taxes Political unrest at every point along the path of building human society is centered around gross material inequality Stop bloviating at your screen as mom & dad did when Dan Rather would say something stupid and get to work solving these problems All I see is people creating a market for more of the same prioritizing rich grandpas demands Rather than follow Andreessen, the next generation should have what he had as a kid: higher taxes funneling shit tons of resources into local communities to evolve as the people need, not as finance market speculators dictate Pitter patter

johndubchak 6y ago
Let's get 'atter.
bhupy 6y ago
> Look at tax rates between WW2 & Reagan and the growth in the wealth of the middle class during the same period Are you talking about income taxes? Because, yes you're right that Federal income taxes are nowhere near what they were post-WW2, but... > and the growth in the wealth of the middle class during the same period ...the wealth of the upper class has grown to historic levels because the vast VAST majority of upper-class wealth right now (top 0.1%) is 1) in unrealized capital gains, and 2) once capital gains are realized, they are taxed at the same rate that they were all the way up until the 70's, where it spent a brief decade moderately higher than it is today. Bezos doesn't have $100B+ sitting around in a checking account, and a WW2-era marginal tax rate wouldn't really raise as much as you think it would. Most of the richest billionaires have a salary of $1.
- sudosysgen 6y ago
  Bezos doesn't have 100B$ sitting on a bank account, but he has a low-interest high throughput equity line against his hare portfolio that means that if he wants to cut a 5 billion dollar cheque in the next 30 minutes, he can. Which is pretty damn close to having 100B$ sitting around. If he did pay a high tax rate every time he realized his gains in any way or tapped his equity through a financial instrument, I think things would be much better. But right now Bezos can pay a realized tax rate of under 20% if he wants.
  - bhupy 6y ago
    Yes, these billionaires take collateralized loans, but that doesn't change the fact that they will eventually HAVE to pay taxes. At some point, Bezos has to realize some gain somewhere to have cash to pay back the loan — and odds are, that will be taxed as capital gains, the rate for which has been essentially constant since WW2.
    - sudosysgen 6y ago
      Sure, but in practice the actual tax rate for the upper echelon of the world right now is much, much lower than that for common people or for the upper echelon back in WW2.
      - bhupy 6y ago
        That's factually incorrect. https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/ https://taxfoundation.org/taxes-on-the-rich-1950s-not-high/
        sudosysgen 6y ago
        That is only factually incorrect if you look at the 1% in terms of households and in terms of income. In reality, a multi-millionaire might not qualify as the top 1% in household income due to their reliance on capital growth instead of straight income. One might see a million dollar increase in net worth, while paying no taxes on it, and then using that million dollar as collateral to help finance more and more growth. The only tax you might end up paying might be capital gains tax of 20%, or even 15%, eventually, while if it was household income you would pay 45% in taxes. The shift of income from dividends to capital gains for the wealthiest is not reflected in your statistics, and so I don't think they can be used to answer my earlier comment. The data in your source indeed does not seem to consider capital gains tax, as they seem to reflect the top tax bracket on average for different states and locales, whereas if capital gains were considered in relation to the state in which they are realized, it would certainly be much lower.
AnthonyMouse 6y ago
Real taxes per capita have done nothing but increase since the end of WWII. Taxes as a percent of GDP have been stable while real GDP has increased. There are higher taxes now than there were then. The nominal "high tax rates" paid in the mid 20th century were fictional because nobody actually paid them; the effective rates were no higher than they are now. What's different now is what we spend the money on.
- google234123 6y ago
  Welfare mostly.
  - piva00 6y ago
    Care to provide a source?
    - google234123 6y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_spending_in_the_Uni...
  - blaser-waffle 6y ago
    Welfare was slashed to the bone under Clinton. The largest expansion of gub'mnt care costs was under Bush when he expanded prescription drug care to the elderly. Another $1 Trillion (not Billion, Trillion) is estimated for veterans care for those who were hurt in the endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
    - google234123 6y ago
      Not a year... 1 trillion over 55 years (or what ever it is) isn't that much.
- specialist 6y ago
  What's the effective tax rate on each quintile? How has proportion of taxes levied from persons vs corporations changed over time?
wpietri 6y ago
I'm not opposed, I think it's more urgent to get money out of politics. The amount of time our reps have to spend fundraising is insane. And that money isn't free. Pre-internet, one legitimately needed a lot of money to get a message out to a nation as big as ours. That's no longer true. There are all sorts of ways we could fix this problem. Government-funded elections. Maximum spending limits. Maximum contribution limits. Strong spending disclosure requirements. Real penalties for people who violate spending laws. Requiring all public servants to keep assets in a blind trust. Ending the revolving door. I don't much care which approaches we start with, but I'd love to see us making progress here.
godzillabrennus 6y ago
Fix government? Okay. First, corporations and private sector aren’t inherently bad. There is a need to have economic interests in a community heard in politics. They just need a counterbalance like unions have done in the workplace for labor. (Yes, I know unions are a diminished power but their legacy is still strong). Next, let’s stop being penny wise and dollar foolish. Tech bro’s in San Fran make multiples more than people who make life or death decisions. It’s time for elected representatives to be paid commensurate for the seriousness of their jobs so they care about keeping the job and not leaving for a private sector payday they helped create. Term limits aren’t the issue, who these people really work for is. Start pay at $2M / year for a congressperson with $10M a year in capital they can spend on their local community however they want so long as they and their immediate families don’t benefit. Turn the tables on the well monied interest groups. We also need to push for a fourth branch of government. One that has 2 people per state chosen at random (like jury duty) to serve a four year term in DC. This branch will have veto rights over any president being able to sign an executive order or a bill. Imagine how many unpopular EO’s or bills would pass (e.g. net neutrality is killed) if average people had a voice. Also, let’s gut the entire educational system in the country and start over keeping only the actual educators and the real estate as the constants. If you want tomorrow to be better we need an education system that is the envy of the world. We need K-12 to be enough to bring people to an employable level. There is no reason every abled bodies graduate with a fully functioning mind shouldn’t be able to code at least hello world in python.

ken 6y ago

Unions aren't an alternative to corporations. They're a balance for it. This sounds like "Instead of creating a 'Legislature', let's just disperse the power of the 'Executive'." Yeah, how do you plan to do that, without a balance?

clairity 6y ago
exactly, they counterbalance. you can either have huge weights balancing each other or small ones. it’s better then to have small ones because power corrupts. it’s why we share power among 3 branches, 50 states and myriad local jurisdictions. civilizations are more resilient against small corruptions of power than large ones. we do it by rolling back the advantages businesses have amassed over the last half century (or providing residents with all of the same advantages). we institute transparency in labor markets, nullify tax advantages and liability shields, equalize the political voice of the populace, hold companies accountable for (excessive) risk-taking, and rectify thousands, maybe millions, more such injustices. is it that hard to imagine?

_bxg1 6y ago

The problem is it's much harder to moderate power structures, because that requires changing them from the inside, which they themselves are incentivized to prevent.

clairity 6y ago
that’s true but do we keep digging ourselves further in the hole or do we start metaphorically clubbing our administrators and politicians over the head to make meaningful changes? change takes work and we have to start somewhere. at least our political system has the levers available to make that change, however hard.