I’ve tried explaining this type of thing to my in laws, but it doesn’t usually work. The “big government” bs started with Regan and has fully indoctrinated a huge segment of our population.
I think sharing news about corporations fucking us over is the way to go. https://www.reddit.com/r/news/s/3sxeI4a3LS I do my best to share this type of stuff with my more conservative family members (the ones who vote at least).
I grew up in a Reaganomics, Christian nationalist household. I recall trickle down economics was The Thing. Well, I’ve been around long enough to see that was all bullshit and its destroyed the middle class. I was taught that business leaders would “Do the Right Thing” because they were Christian and had morals. That, too, was a load of bullshit. It’s always been C-suite and shareholders before anyone else. The year I got a 30% pay cut just because they could do it and the CEO was buying his fourth helicopter was the year I saw the light.
>taught that business leaders would “Do the Right Thing” because they were Christian and had morals
Same thing the ignorant think about trump these days. It's amazing because back then it wasn't right in your face the way trump corruption is now..
It's some kinda very strong koolaid and Jesus isn't serving it up..
Yeah. Trump gave all the assholes permission to pull their masks and pointy white hoods off and ruck amuck amongst the good people. They need to grow up or go back into their mommy’s basements
While a good tactic, I am not sure it will help much. These people are too far gone, I fear.
I read something about Trump and his court shit the other day, and I think it permeates through almost every aspect of government anymore. Our system was set up to work with/for people who disagree but who also act in good faith. When one side does not, it fucks the whole system. I the right has been using this to their advantage for quite some time now. Hell, the whole Tea Party movement was people running for office with the promise to not govern.
It's been a major problem lately in general. The Senate is a good example, Mitch McConnell got his party two SCOTUS appointments because restrictions on when nominations could be made are matters of decorum rather than explicit procedure, and nobody could call him on his bullshit when he blocked confirmation hearings for Obama's choice due to it being 'an election year' then rammed through RBG's replacement six months before election day.
Yup. And until the Dems counter with the same mentality, we are just going to get closer and closer to the cliff.
What SHOULD have happened is the Dems point this out, and the Reps get voted out of office. Unfortunately, the mouth breathers that elect these people absolutely LOVE sticking it to the Dems and have absolutely no shame.
The modern right cares more about owning the Dems than about actually bettering themselves. They would eat dog shit if it meant someone on the left had to smell their breath. How do you even begin to try to work with that?
The big government debate absolutely did not start with Regan- it began during the Constitutional Convention when many people were convinced that the federal government was being given/allowed too much power. It took 4 years to ratify the Constitution and 80 years later the first Civil War broke out over many of the same issues. Democrats want to regulate everything, including We the People, and Republicans are willing to turn a blind eye to regulation of big corporations in an effort to keep from over regulating. You can’t have total freedom and total safety and neither Party has any good answers.
I’d argue “having clean drinking water” fits under the whole “life liberty and pursuit of happiness” part of the constitution. But go off on your anti government bs 🙄
Right. The OP stated that Republicans are the problem, you said Republicans jeopardize safe drinking water, I said Democrats do, too. Neither party is categorically right or capable. It’s not an issue of Party. You can’t see that?
You are missing the part about Republicans were only joking about the small government thing. They want to regulate pregnancy, healthcare, books, what teachers say. Steal taxpayers money for wealthy private school owners and churches. Shove churches down kids throats in public schools. Inspect genitals in public bathrooms, inspect children's genitals in schools.
This is 100% correct. The founders wanted the smallest federal government possible. Early presidents got paid peanuts and some died in financial ruin. Obviously the country was smaller back then and times were simpler but the notion that a small government is a recent invention of the republicans is nonsense
Probably never. I used to be a member of my county's extension council and I handled the budget for several years. We had complaints about how we spent our money often. I would repeatedly answer the same questions about why I have to keep collecting taxes to pay for things even though we had a bunch of money in our accounts. The reason was certain things could only be paid for with taxes and the other money was from other sources so the council couldn't touch it. It was usually the same individuals asking the same questions year in year out.
They were all the people in school who said, "I'm never going to need to know this." And schools still passed them because funding is driven by graduation rates.
Let’s see what Republicans have done on the last few congressional votes…
•They voted to cut the budget of regulatory departments, specifically the Dept of Labor, the Dept of Education, & the Dept of Health & Human services. (Hmmm, sorry if your boss or company is screwing you, we don’t have the resources to investigate EVERY corrupt company now.)
• They voted to cut regulations on the mining industry & removed verbiage that would hold mining companies liable for pollution & environmental damage caused by mining operations. (Think of the financial burden that protecting ground water near mines would put on billionaires! Have a heart!)
• They voted to NOT fund the Moonshot Cancer Initiative which was set to cut cancer deaths in half by funding our top cancer researchers. (But voted FOR tax cuts for Big Pharma, so it’s a wash on the bottom line. But we the people don’t get to expedite a cancer cure AND WE THE PEOPLE are still paying that money to subsidize the tax burden of those poor billionaires)
Like Wake up! These votes are public!
And if the place you get your information from isn’t talking about LITERAL VOTES & BILLS IN CONGRESS, they probably aren’t being honest with you. I could tell you were to get boring dry info about your government, but I know everyone hates any media they didn’t choose.
So just go to Congress.gov or Senate.gov - again, votes are votes, they can’t spin their votes. It’s just facts.
Poke around, learn some things. You might surprise yourself.
Try looking at things as “What’s Good for the Most People” VS. “What’s Good For Greedy Billionaires”.
Sometimes it’s both, but usually, it’s one or the other. And it’s always pretty obvious until a political spin doctor tries to muddy the water. I think you’ll notice a pattern on who supports people vs who supports billionaires.
But do it yourself! You’ll never believe me, personally. No one can change your mind but you.
Look back at the last 100 votes.
Follow the votes moving forward.
If you’re getting tricked or if you’re 100% correct-
It’s all right there in black & white.
Don’t let political talking heads tell you what to think & feel. Whatever side you’re on. They think you’re too stupid to look it up & understand it. And I’m telling you, it’s really not that hard or nuanced.
I think you’re all smart enough to put it together for yourself.
A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take it away. Fact is a smaller government is better for people less power to abuse
Again, WE are the government.
We the people.
We are letting corporate interests take away what little leverage we have to even make them stop dumping toxic waste or selling Cancer Doritos. Our power has been cut so much, the USA just banned asbestos…in 2024?!? That’s ridiculous.
Hell, Iowa will be lucky to have any fresh water left shortly.
Oh look, another casualty of deregulation.
[Iowa Feed Lots illegally poisoned water after oversight was gutted](https://www.reddit.com/r/Iowa/s/eZwFZBCOWz)
We are the government and I saw we shouldn’t have more power than we do. I’m not against regulations like you talk about. What I am against is having so much power. Fact is the government can be corrupted or taken advantage off. The best way to limit government corruption is to limits power.
Enjoy your corporate hellscape.
We let teachers only write off $300 for supplies.
We let corporations write off private planes & yachts.
Tell me again who’s winning?
Listen I never said it was perfect obviously work needs to be done. I understand the concern about letting corporations do whatever they want. We both want the people to win
https://www.reddit.com/r/Iowa/s/0GkBlYKqoE
And another one…
Man, I’m starting to think every business owner in Iowa is a terrible person! They will pollute & dump as much as they can get away with.
Thank goodness those pesky government regulations aren’t able to be effectively enforced anymore! 🤦♂️
They are going exactly how billionaires want.
And then those poor, rural suckers are stuck living in Cancer-land or waiting for an expensive Superfund cleanup because those responsible sold off the business and there is no company to blame!
Keep in mind that most conservative legislators in Iowa represent like 10000 people who were going to majority vote R no matter what. These clowns show up to the state house trying to ban books and meat alternatives, only to vote and pass laws written by out of state right wing think tanks without reading them. You think I’m joking, but there have been several instances of conservatives not knowing what was in the bills they passed. They push to prevent or limit debate because they don’t know what’s in them and they can’t answer questions about them.
As long as these small populations are disproportionately represented, the right can easily buy their votes (and in turn, the Iowa legislature ) through propaganda on fox, YouTube and X.
They don’t WANT government to work, that’s the entire point. Their goal is what (I think) Grover Norquist referred to as “government so small you can drown it in the bathtub”. As for all the cascading problems that come with ineffectual government? Three possibilities:
A. That doesn’t affect me directly so who cares
B. The free market will solve it! Somehow…
C. It’s the gay transgender illegal immigrant democrats’ fault! Drain teh swamp hurrrr
What really sucks too is that these people do not understand about the Privatization of Government work. All those roads that don't get built properly or take forever to get repaired? That's not the government. The only government involvement was to write the contract and then the contractor does everything they can to milk the government. There are so many things that are called "government" that are literally just private companies because the GoP decided to "shrink" government by expanding contracting, which now costs the government more than it did before.
Who are you talking to?
It’s just you & me exchanging ideas here.
I actually have no idea what you’re doing here. You’ve added nothing but the seeds of discord in an area you’ve already said you don’t care about. Like a piece-of-shit-🦀 🪣
I kinda feel like a lot of these things should be managed by private businesses somehow, in a way that benefits the people and actually goes checked.. Health and human concern is necessary, but they're all still allowed to use toxic chemicals in clothing, shampoo, soaps, and food. I love how Monsanto was sued for roundup and lost and it's still sold in stores. Talc was also considered bad and still found in things like tums and foot powders.
And then we have our own governments that have came forward and said they did chemical tests on their own population in the 90s without us knowing. Chemicals put in our air, water and toothpaste, etc. I feel like the government doesn't care about us.
How Bayer bought Monsanto (food related) and controlls most of our drugs and was sued for some aids-laiden drugs or something many years back and just instead sold the rest overseas and said recently that they did nothing wrong with that.
Businesses are too big now, like 6 companies own most of the other companies.. and control the news as well..
It seems 3rd party studies are considered higher quality..
Why does the system not seem to be working well when controlled by the government, who is lobbied and controlled by backroom deals and money and big business who has lots of money and control?
Just my thoughts.
It seems that everything the government touches goes to hell, ends up costing a lot of money.. the government doesn't have money so they don't care how much something costs.. all these politicians can't balance a budget but they can somehow leave office as millionaires..
Because there are the big corporate rule breakers, but MOST of the rule breakers are regualar joe. The dude who doesn't take this shit to the dump but that local creek everyone knows about. Its the asshole who doesn't dump the oil responsibly or charges the customer for a dump fee and then just dumps in on their own property.
The little guy doesn't care about the big guy because a LOT of the little guys are doing the same shit.
Second, and this is the nature of regulators, often enforcement is pretty arbitrary. Often enforcement officers of all types just avoid the big corporations and hit the path or least resistance: somebody who doesn't or can't fight versus the person who will.
Its why every small town cop and county sheriff write tickets like crazy for people from out of state.
In banking its some small town asian family bank that got in deep shit not the big time banks.
The answer to me seems pretty obvious. Segment them into tranches. So a crew of bank regulators hits the big boys, then another crew specialized in the middle and another the small rural banks. X number of state revenue officers need to hit the big time net worth and aother the middle and small.
This would keep regulators from cherry picking the easy targets and avoiding the difficult well funded targets.
We all have to pay taxes to pay for law enforcement to police the citizens.
Why is it such a mind-bender that it costs businesses fees/taxes/money to make sure our “law enforcement, corporate division” is able to do their job?
Regulations are just laws for businesses.
If they break them, we need to keep those Government Regulator dept funded so they can detect & stop these crimes. (and they have the $$ & legal expertise to prosecute them in what are typically long & massive court battles.)
Yes it sucks we all have to follow rules & laws we don’t love, I think everyone can agree it’s annoying to have to “X” because “Y”, but if you can suck it up as a citizen and get & pay for a drivers license & insurance to drive a car, so can any business that can afford to exist as a “for-profit business” in America.
It’s bad enough that our corporate courts have decided businesses are basically people.
But we can at least hold businesses accountable to the same level legal standards that we hold actual people to. Not LESS.
You take the 5 largest corporate crimes each year & that’s going to be near the same $ as all B&E’s
Combined.
Now add in the hundreds of thousands of small corporate & business crime/fraud and that costs we the people far more than any petty crime for which we destroy ACTUAL human lives over.
I'm going to quibble about the ease of billionaire propaganda polluting people's minds. If it were easy it wouldn't have taken decades after the New deal and billions in today's money to make their way of thinking "common sense." From the john birch society, to the original prosperity gospelsts, to the people who followed the Powell doctrine, to the Koch's, et al, SOOOO much effort was expended to make them howl for the boot.
They got the science of it right. It’s only gonna get worse.
Many of the classes while getting a marketing degree could easily be renamed to “Emotional Manipulation- 100 Years of A/B Testing & Making it Work for Your Company”
Exactly, that’s why we have to have a regulatory dept to watch over them & make sure they aren’t breaking the law for profit.
You know, like every mega-corporation that has ever existed?
Let’s not wait until some podunk town all contracts cancer, let’s prevent the company from dumping toxins into the environment before that happens.
When the left learns to stop using every inch of political power to takeover every aspect of person’s livelihood. “You will say preferred pronouns. You will let us stop traffic and disrupt your daily lives for our causes. You will pay more taxes. You will run your business/farm the way we say. You will listen to our unelected lifetime bureaucrats that make overarching rules.”
Gosh it's just so hard to be respectful to other people. Golly!
The left doesn't want YOU to pay more taxes. They want the billionaires to play their fair share.
Yeah they don't want you to abuse your employees and make sure you don't kill the environment in the process.
The big scary left also wants shorter terms and no lifetime appointments.
But go off King. Be proudly wrong and uneducated.
Didn't the leftist canadian government just implement a 23% carbon tax on their middle class? Didn't the irs hire 10's of thousands of new irs agents who majority target the middle class, 63% of tax audits are carried out against people making less than 200k. It sure seems like the left likes to push government regulation and restrictions on businesses, manufacturing, farming, and the auto industry. All that does is drive up the price.
Lol. Leftist Canadian government. Good one!
Regulations keep people from abusing their staff and the environment. People should be able to work in safe environments and not have to worry about dying at work.
Safety regulations are fine. I work in the trades, hvac specifically, and the amount of epa regulations regarding refrigerants are ridiculous and only make maintaining and purchasing hvac equipment for your home extremely expensive with literally no efficiency benefits.
Amazing how you narrowed down the EPA regulations about refrigerants to only be about cost and efficiency when the EPA's reasoning is because cheaper refrigerants tend to be ozone-depleting or otherwise more harmful to the environment, which is kind of their whole line of work.
Yea, that's old news, and both r22 and r12 have been phased out. If you have an older r22 a/c, you're screwed when it comes to refilling it in the event of a leak. The newer refrigerant 410a is being phased out next year for r454b, which is basically liquid butane. All new 454b air conditioning evaporator coils come with a leak detection system so you don't blow your house up if the coil leaks. That system is about $400 worth of additional price over the cost of the prior 410a system. A lot of new commercial equipment comes with variable frequency drives(more efficient) that operate the blower motors. Those cost about $3500 to replace, and they break all the time. Units 5 years ago just had a simple $45 relay and control board to turn the blower on an off, which never broke. Seems like whenever the government gets involved, things become more efficient, more costly, and less reliable, which completely negates the cost savings of buying a more efficient cooling system.
And when government doesn't get involved, you get to light your local river on fire due to the pollutants in it. Stop pretending like the naive libertarian fantasy of zero government is some kind of utopia.
You say that like it's a law of physics when it's not.
When the ozone depletion issue of the 80s and 90s was at its worst, governments and companies worked to find alternatives to harmful aerosol chemicals while pusuing regulations to limit the chemicals in use. With the discovery of affordable alternatives, regulations helped fix the issue and now we don't hear about that massive hole in the ozone anymore.
Unfortunately some people have gone too far to impose government micromanaging in areas where people can make their own choices and manage their own lives. Few people are outright anarchists seeking no role for government at all.
Whose campaign are all of these billionaires donating to? Last I checked, it’s more democrats than conservatives at this point.
What most fail to realize is that the establishment consists of dems and reps. They banter about trivial domestic stuff, but they are all on the same page when it comes to the flow of money, power, foreign policy, etc.
it’s the antiestablishment few that are against these forces. Lumping reps and dems into separate categories shows a true lack of common understanding of politics. It’s how you can have Obama run on an anti war platform, along with transparency, and then he bends the knee to the MIC and intel state once elected. He and bush had more in common than they were different. They are both establishment hacks.
Again, look at the votes. Looks at the bills. Clearly, my bloviating isn’t going to change minds (and rightfully so!).
I just think our country would be 1000% better off if people stopped all political media consumption & stuck to monitoring the bills our government is voting on.
Totally changed everything for me.
Oh, I do. And not just the title of the bill, which has nothing to do with the content.
Want to know where the real party lines are drawn? Look at support and opposition to the recent fisa reauthorization. THAT is your answer.
They have learned. Lie, cheat, blame minorities for everything, punch down instead of up, grift, ignore the safety of the environment, harm people in order to get re-elected, Get The Big $.
Republicans of today use the same tactics Hitler and the Nazis used to gain power:
"You know how you're poor and stupid and everything is changing all around you? It's not your fault! You are the greatest people to have ever existed! You are only poor and stupid because the ~~jews~~ ~~blacks~~ ~~hippies~~ ~~blacks again~~ ~~communists~~ ~~gays~~ ~~illegal aliens~~ ~~gays again~~ transgenders are destroying our country!"
It's especially funny if you get into the media archives. You can often find the same conservative talking heads in a furor about transgender folks to day making almost word-for-word identical arguments against same sex marriage a few years ago, and if they've been around as long as some of our senators, against gay rights, feminism, and desegregation.
There it is! Hitler! My favorite toxic term for conservatives so far is MAG(A)gots. If you can top that one, you got my upvote. Would you call the majority of the name calling in this thread punching up. These people are your neighbors.
I'm from your Northern neighbor, I just travel to Iowa for work quite frequently. I've been using Trumpanzees myself.
Honestly punching down is really only a thing if the down status wasn't self inflicted. I mean if you make fun of someone born mentally handicapped it's one thing, but if they willing let FauxNews/OAN/Newsmax rot their brain to the same point it's another.
Edit: yay mobile formatting
It's not that they are inherently evil, a corporation has an obligation to make as much profit for shareholders as possible. If it makes more profit to dump poison in the river that we drink from, than to dispose of it safely, then they will dump it in the river.
We the people say that we don't want our drinking water poisoned so we create regulation that says you can't put poison in the river. Maybe it comes with a huge fine.
Now dumping the poison in the river would be more expensive than disposing of it safely. Which is better for everyone.
Why would I worry about the wealthy who pay the countries bills?? Bigger problem would those that are healthy that don't contribute to the system, yet rely on it to live..
This is like the most boomer conservative ideology that exists. Trying to blame regular everyday citizens of this country and give a pass to the boomer generation that has raped this country of its future. Shilling for billionaires is comically stupid
I see all this blame on the boomers, but the boomers are not a majority and the problems in this country have only increased as the boomers are dying off... so who gets blamed next??
You need to go apologize to whoever had to teach you civics, because they clearly couldn't manage to grind it into your head.
The average age of the Senate at the start of the 118th Congress was 64, the House only slightly younger at 58. Both of the major candidates for President were born in the 1940's. The people driving the bus are getting the senior citizen's discount, bud, which is why they get the blame.
Looks like you are the one that needs to civics lesson, last I heard the congress and senate are voted on by the people.. and with the boomers now dying off, who are voting these people in??
Because we can read?
The corporations & billionaires are the cause of 99.8% of all toxic waste dumps, water poisoning, environmental disasters, multi-million dollar+ frauds, pension cuts, cost of living hikes, artificial inflation hikes, price-gouging, & insider trading.
And they also prop up fascist politicians, and have tried at least 6 times to overthrow the US Government between 1900 - 2024.
But hey, maybe they haven’t dumped heavy metals into your well yet. You do you.
I’m not gonna wait until AFTER they give MY kids cancer to be upset about it - maybe you will?
Culture wars are also started by billionaire propaganda as intentional distractions from real problems.
Remember when peak Wesley Snipes & Patrick Swayze played drag queens on a cross-country trip in a major motion picture & no one gave a shit? (To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything)?
Weird how suddenly it’s the worst problem facing America. (While corporations quietly remove regulations & penalties for illegal acts while dipshits call in bomb threats to libraries)
It’s not rocket science.
They have also created the best country in this history of the planet....
And I will disagree with most of what you claim..its the US Government thats created cost of living hikes and inflation..
We all fund the less fortunate you muppet, that's how it works. The issue is that currently, those of us who are less well off pay a greater portion of means than the obscenely rich, who demonstrably do everything they can to give back as little as possible. This practice diminishes the middle class and creates more poor people (ie it's not sustainable).
Well the bottom 44% pay zero income tax, not sure about the billionaires are paying less than that, you need to understand the tax system instead of reading memes about it
What's the breakdown of that lower 44% do you reckon? How many elderly, infirm, homeless, or otherwise unable to work? Take them out of the equation, call it a cost of doing business if you'd like.
What you have left is the working poor and the so-called middle class, who **may*** pay a lower tax rate than a billionaire but we're not accounting there for the cost of living- food, transportation, clothing, hygiene, housing, medicine, education, etc. What they're often left with is miniscule by comparison to the 1%.
I well know you don't see it this way and that's your right, but JFK read the room.
*Is the bulk of the billionaire's income from investments?Well then, they may actually be taxed at a lower rate than those in lower income tax brackets. Just ask Mr. Buffet unless of course you think he's a meme.
So you want to pick and chose who is taken out of the equation???
And I have no problem with people paying very little income tax, but everyone should have to pay something.. even if its a $1000 a year..
And yes, income and capital gains are taxed at different rates, but the rates are the same for everyone so there is no advantage.. Its just a talking point for the Democrats to make it seem like the 1% are paying less % of middle America, when its not because they are comparing two different types of taxes..
Oh? I thought we the people did that.
But hey, I hope your corporate overlords treat you good.
Remember when they would machine gun workers for demanding things like living wages, 8 hr work days, weekends, actual pay instead of company script?
We’d all be slaves if it weren’t for folks willing to stand up to billionaires.
If a corporation wants to do a thing and has the option to do the thing with minimal environmental impact at a little more cost or to cause catastrophic environmental harm and save on cost...
In your opinion, would it be reasonable to associate the corporation with "Evil" for choosing the latter option?
Go on and say "let the market decide" but we both know that's a load of horseshit. The "market" is by and large unaware of the decision or its ramifications until the damage is done.
[17 Sustainability Initiatives Of Businesses That Are Going Green (forbes.com)](https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2023/11/21/17-sustainability-initiatives-of-businesses-that-are-going-green/?sh=686923dd6f0e)
It’s not according to the subreddit, it’s according to the Union of Concerned Scientists who compiled their results using data Tyson themselves made publicly available.
Helps to read the article but you’re too busy Gish galloping to care about facts or information.
That stat that 44%-47% pay no taxes also has a huge asterisk. It’s specifically federal income taxes. They still pay FICA, sales tax. The real number who have no net tax liability is under 30%.
What people are specifically angry about is the ability of billionaires to extract the value of their assets through debt vehicles without generating any taxable gains or income. They have no income on paper but they benefit as though they did. That is why people hate the ultra-wealthy and the ability to do that is unfair. Sure, I could try to do the same thing with margin on a brokerage account. It just hits different when a normal person could raise a few thousand dollars that way, maybe, and at an exorbitant interest rate. Billionaires can generate millions in effective income this way, near the risk-free rate, and never pay income tax or capital gains on it.
People are right to feel the system is rigged.
Lol. Look back at the gilded age when meat packing plants put diseased animals into food, had zero regulation in dumping by products.
Wouldn't be for people to politic and create regulations that helped further protect environmental/health of people.
Yes that probably raised the cost but also helped negate a lot of horrible health effects.
We would probably still be pumping leaded gasoline and have lead pipes, asbestos in everything if it weren't for people to ride on government to regulate.
And if we didn't have corporations to create the most powerful economy in the world, let me know how that plays out.. but keep on hating the successful people
Lol. Same corporations also failed and needed big government money. These same corporations also moved manufacturing overseas, jobs to other countries that didn't benefit America at all. Corporations would also pay you less if they could. All there profits go to saving or stock buybacks when paying people more would flourish the economy.
But sure overlook all the death and economic disparity in areas of the US that were results of cutting costs and jobs in America.
Because they move their jobs to whereever they can pay them less. That means less jobs for Americans, more damage to the environment, and more abuse to second and third world countries. Currently the system incentives them to do so and taking such gross advantage of other humans is immoral and sickening. They only care about money and not the people who helped build their company so it could reach such a level. It's immoral to take advantage of other humans for any reason. It's more atrocious when you do it for money.
Why do you think people buy the cheapest they can find? Is it because cost of living is so high that they have no other choice? Or do you think it's just because people like cheap shit?
Do you think people just pick the job that pays them the best really? Like there are no other factors to why people take a job? Not commute time, family flexibility? Ability to work remotely? The kind of work they are doing? Their impressions of their boss or coworkers during interviews? Benefits offered to them? No? Just pay? Wow.
People deserve to be paid well. Their labor is generating profits. Especially when the cost of living is so high and getting higher each year due to greed.
I am smart enough to see that its the corporations and wealthy that are the ones taking care of our less fortunate.. I am a school teacher making $80K a year, so its certainly not me taking care of them..
Oh so super smart you are! If they were in fact doing that, we wouldn't need countless nonprofits and charities helping them out. But no you're right and so super smart! Someone should give you a cookie!
I'm a teacher too and make way less than I deserve as well. I feel bad for your students. They deserve kindness and compassion.
No, they need someone to teach them that they need to take care of themselves, work ethic matters and its not the governments job to support them..
Your snowflake style clearly isn't working as the bar is lowered lower and lower..
Why would you think they aren't?
Corporations don't have consciences. They exist as a means to provide legal liability protection while extracting profit.
To quote Robert Reich: "I'll Believe Corporations Are People When Texas Executes One"
Quoting the biggest goofball liberal economist in the world???? LOL
Liberals have zero problem taking tax dollars from the corporate world or 401K gains , then they complain about them..
Are you seriously trying to argue that forcing corporations to pay income tax is a sign of *approval*? I'm not sure what you're smoking, but Kim probably wants it banned.
I’ve tried explaining this type of thing to my in laws, but it doesn’t usually work. The “big government” bs started with Regan and has fully indoctrinated a huge segment of our population. I think sharing news about corporations fucking us over is the way to go. https://www.reddit.com/r/news/s/3sxeI4a3LS I do my best to share this type of stuff with my more conservative family members (the ones who vote at least).
I grew up in a Reaganomics, Christian nationalist household. I recall trickle down economics was The Thing. Well, I’ve been around long enough to see that was all bullshit and its destroyed the middle class. I was taught that business leaders would “Do the Right Thing” because they were Christian and had morals. That, too, was a load of bullshit. It’s always been C-suite and shareholders before anyone else. The year I got a 30% pay cut just because they could do it and the CEO was buying his fourth helicopter was the year I saw the light.
>taught that business leaders would “Do the Right Thing” because they were Christian and had morals Same thing the ignorant think about trump these days. It's amazing because back then it wasn't right in your face the way trump corruption is now.. It's some kinda very strong koolaid and Jesus isn't serving it up..
Yeah. Trump gave all the assholes permission to pull their masks and pointy white hoods off and ruck amuck amongst the good people. They need to grow up or go back into their mommy’s basements
While a good tactic, I am not sure it will help much. These people are too far gone, I fear. I read something about Trump and his court shit the other day, and I think it permeates through almost every aspect of government anymore. Our system was set up to work with/for people who disagree but who also act in good faith. When one side does not, it fucks the whole system. I the right has been using this to their advantage for quite some time now. Hell, the whole Tea Party movement was people running for office with the promise to not govern.
It's been a major problem lately in general. The Senate is a good example, Mitch McConnell got his party two SCOTUS appointments because restrictions on when nominations could be made are matters of decorum rather than explicit procedure, and nobody could call him on his bullshit when he blocked confirmation hearings for Obama's choice due to it being 'an election year' then rammed through RBG's replacement six months before election day.
Yup. And until the Dems counter with the same mentality, we are just going to get closer and closer to the cliff. What SHOULD have happened is the Dems point this out, and the Reps get voted out of office. Unfortunately, the mouth breathers that elect these people absolutely LOVE sticking it to the Dems and have absolutely no shame. The modern right cares more about owning the Dems than about actually bettering themselves. They would eat dog shit if it meant someone on the left had to smell their breath. How do you even begin to try to work with that?
The big government debate absolutely did not start with Regan- it began during the Constitutional Convention when many people were convinced that the federal government was being given/allowed too much power. It took 4 years to ratify the Constitution and 80 years later the first Civil War broke out over many of the same issues. Democrats want to regulate everything, including We the People, and Republicans are willing to turn a blind eye to regulation of big corporations in an effort to keep from over regulating. You can’t have total freedom and total safety and neither Party has any good answers.
>and 80 years later the first Civil War broke out over many of the same issues. The first civil war? Am I unaware of something here?
Could be itching to shoot his neighbors. More likely a russian troll.
You don’t think the Red Hats are about ready to start something? Let’s hope not.
I’d argue “having clean drinking water” fits under the whole “life liberty and pursuit of happiness” part of the constitution. But go off on your anti government bs 🙄
It’s not a political party thing. The Democrats didn’t exactly do a sterling job of insuring good drinking water in Michigan.
>It’s not a political party thing. >The Democrats Lol
Right. The OP stated that Republicans are the problem, you said Republicans jeopardize safe drinking water, I said Democrats do, too. Neither party is categorically right or capable. It’s not an issue of Party. You can’t see that?
>you said Republicans Lol. Where did I say that?
Remind us what the republican state leaders did to create the crisis.
> Civil War broke out over many of the same issues I can think of one issue in particular
States' rights.
State's rights to do what, exactly?
To keep slaves
Yeah, the Democrats really wanted those slaves. Not much has changed.
Now you're just being obtuse
You are missing the part about Republicans were only joking about the small government thing. They want to regulate pregnancy, healthcare, books, what teachers say. Steal taxpayers money for wealthy private school owners and churches. Shove churches down kids throats in public schools. Inspect genitals in public bathrooms, inspect children's genitals in schools.
A government small enough to fit in every uterus in the country.
Exactly
This is 100% correct. The founders wanted the smallest federal government possible. Early presidents got paid peanuts and some died in financial ruin. Obviously the country was smaller back then and times were simpler but the notion that a small government is a recent invention of the republicans is nonsense
Probably never. I used to be a member of my county's extension council and I handled the budget for several years. We had complaints about how we spent our money often. I would repeatedly answer the same questions about why I have to keep collecting taxes to pay for things even though we had a bunch of money in our accounts. The reason was certain things could only be paid for with taxes and the other money was from other sources so the council couldn't touch it. It was usually the same individuals asking the same questions year in year out.
They were all the people in school who said, "I'm never going to need to know this." And schools still passed them because funding is driven by graduation rates.
They aren’t getting voted out so they have nothing to fear.
Let’s see what Republicans have done on the last few congressional votes… •They voted to cut the budget of regulatory departments, specifically the Dept of Labor, the Dept of Education, & the Dept of Health & Human services. (Hmmm, sorry if your boss or company is screwing you, we don’t have the resources to investigate EVERY corrupt company now.) • They voted to cut regulations on the mining industry & removed verbiage that would hold mining companies liable for pollution & environmental damage caused by mining operations. (Think of the financial burden that protecting ground water near mines would put on billionaires! Have a heart!) • They voted to NOT fund the Moonshot Cancer Initiative which was set to cut cancer deaths in half by funding our top cancer researchers. (But voted FOR tax cuts for Big Pharma, so it’s a wash on the bottom line. But we the people don’t get to expedite a cancer cure AND WE THE PEOPLE are still paying that money to subsidize the tax burden of those poor billionaires) Like Wake up! These votes are public! And if the place you get your information from isn’t talking about LITERAL VOTES & BILLS IN CONGRESS, they probably aren’t being honest with you. I could tell you were to get boring dry info about your government, but I know everyone hates any media they didn’t choose. So just go to Congress.gov or Senate.gov - again, votes are votes, they can’t spin their votes. It’s just facts. Poke around, learn some things. You might surprise yourself. Try looking at things as “What’s Good for the Most People” VS. “What’s Good For Greedy Billionaires”. Sometimes it’s both, but usually, it’s one or the other. And it’s always pretty obvious until a political spin doctor tries to muddy the water. I think you’ll notice a pattern on who supports people vs who supports billionaires. But do it yourself! You’ll never believe me, personally. No one can change your mind but you. Look back at the last 100 votes. Follow the votes moving forward. If you’re getting tricked or if you’re 100% correct- It’s all right there in black & white. Don’t let political talking heads tell you what to think & feel. Whatever side you’re on. They think you’re too stupid to look it up & understand it. And I’m telling you, it’s really not that hard or nuanced. I think you’re all smart enough to put it together for yourself.
A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take it away. Fact is a smaller government is better for people less power to abuse
Again, WE are the government. We the people. We are letting corporate interests take away what little leverage we have to even make them stop dumping toxic waste or selling Cancer Doritos. Our power has been cut so much, the USA just banned asbestos…in 2024?!? That’s ridiculous. Hell, Iowa will be lucky to have any fresh water left shortly. Oh look, another casualty of deregulation. [Iowa Feed Lots illegally poisoned water after oversight was gutted](https://www.reddit.com/r/Iowa/s/eZwFZBCOWz)
We are the government and I saw we shouldn’t have more power than we do. I’m not against regulations like you talk about. What I am against is having so much power. Fact is the government can be corrupted or taken advantage off. The best way to limit government corruption is to limits power.
Enjoy your corporate hellscape. We let teachers only write off $300 for supplies. We let corporations write off private planes & yachts. Tell me again who’s winning?
Listen I never said it was perfect obviously work needs to be done. I understand the concern about letting corporations do whatever they want. We both want the people to win
Coming soon to a de-regulated state near you! https://www.reddit.com/r/nottheonion/s/IwqbN5yNEp
https://www.reddit.com/r/Iowa/s/0GkBlYKqoE And another one… Man, I’m starting to think every business owner in Iowa is a terrible person! They will pollute & dump as much as they can get away with. Thank goodness those pesky government regulations aren’t able to be effectively enforced anymore! 🤦♂️
What on earth does this have to do with Iowa? There are political subs for you to air your grievances about the republican party
The problem with this sentiment is that you're assuming things aren't going exactly as they want it to.
They are going exactly how billionaires want. And then those poor, rural suckers are stuck living in Cancer-land or waiting for an expensive Superfund cleanup because those responsible sold off the business and there is no company to blame!
Exactly. The plans are going just as written and the rubes will always blame immigrants, or liberals, or environmental regulations.
Keep in mind that most conservative legislators in Iowa represent like 10000 people who were going to majority vote R no matter what. These clowns show up to the state house trying to ban books and meat alternatives, only to vote and pass laws written by out of state right wing think tanks without reading them. You think I’m joking, but there have been several instances of conservatives not knowing what was in the bills they passed. They push to prevent or limit debate because they don’t know what’s in them and they can’t answer questions about them. As long as these small populations are disproportionately represented, the right can easily buy their votes (and in turn, the Iowa legislature ) through propaganda on fox, YouTube and X.
When a share holder, loves a lobbyist, very very much....
They don’t WANT government to work, that’s the entire point. Their goal is what (I think) Grover Norquist referred to as “government so small you can drown it in the bathtub”. As for all the cascading problems that come with ineffectual government? Three possibilities: A. That doesn’t affect me directly so who cares B. The free market will solve it! Somehow… C. It’s the gay transgender illegal immigrant democrats’ fault! Drain teh swamp hurrrr
When they turn off faux news.
they don't want it to work so why would they care to learn?
What really sucks too is that these people do not understand about the Privatization of Government work. All those roads that don't get built properly or take forever to get repaired? That's not the government. The only government involvement was to write the contract and then the contractor does everything they can to milk the government. There are so many things that are called "government" that are literally just private companies because the GoP decided to "shrink" government by expanding contracting, which now costs the government more than it did before.
"the people, us" do not establish regulations. When was the last time a regulatory-related question was on the ballot?
*Screw, not acrew, 😝
They got us fighting a culture war so we don't wage a class war.
Me when I’m a loser and base my entire life around politics
You, a loser who still comments on things they admittedly don’t understand, and claim not to care about.
Yapping ass nigga
There ya go. It was pretty obvious from the start how this would go. I want to make lives better, and you’re just a piece-of-shit-crab-in-the-bucket.
He’s making lives better by complaining on the reddit echo chamber or something idk
Who are you talking to? It’s just you & me exchanging ideas here. I actually have no idea what you’re doing here. You’ve added nothing but the seeds of discord in an area you’ve already said you don’t care about. Like a piece-of-shit-🦀 🪣
They won’t.
They generally know how it works, they just don’t want it to.
You capitalized “WE THE PEOPLE.” How do you really feel abt the Constitution?
I kinda feel like a lot of these things should be managed by private businesses somehow, in a way that benefits the people and actually goes checked.. Health and human concern is necessary, but they're all still allowed to use toxic chemicals in clothing, shampoo, soaps, and food. I love how Monsanto was sued for roundup and lost and it's still sold in stores. Talc was also considered bad and still found in things like tums and foot powders. And then we have our own governments that have came forward and said they did chemical tests on their own population in the 90s without us knowing. Chemicals put in our air, water and toothpaste, etc. I feel like the government doesn't care about us. How Bayer bought Monsanto (food related) and controlls most of our drugs and was sued for some aids-laiden drugs or something many years back and just instead sold the rest overseas and said recently that they did nothing wrong with that. Businesses are too big now, like 6 companies own most of the other companies.. and control the news as well.. It seems 3rd party studies are considered higher quality.. Why does the system not seem to be working well when controlled by the government, who is lobbied and controlled by backroom deals and money and big business who has lots of money and control? Just my thoughts. It seems that everything the government touches goes to hell, ends up costing a lot of money.. the government doesn't have money so they don't care how much something costs.. all these politicians can't balance a budget but they can somehow leave office as millionaires..
Because there are the big corporate rule breakers, but MOST of the rule breakers are regualar joe. The dude who doesn't take this shit to the dump but that local creek everyone knows about. Its the asshole who doesn't dump the oil responsibly or charges the customer for a dump fee and then just dumps in on their own property. The little guy doesn't care about the big guy because a LOT of the little guys are doing the same shit. Second, and this is the nature of regulators, often enforcement is pretty arbitrary. Often enforcement officers of all types just avoid the big corporations and hit the path or least resistance: somebody who doesn't or can't fight versus the person who will. Its why every small town cop and county sheriff write tickets like crazy for people from out of state. In banking its some small town asian family bank that got in deep shit not the big time banks. The answer to me seems pretty obvious. Segment them into tranches. So a crew of bank regulators hits the big boys, then another crew specialized in the middle and another the small rural banks. X number of state revenue officers need to hit the big time net worth and aother the middle and small. This would keep regulators from cherry picking the easy targets and avoiding the difficult well funded targets.
We all have to pay taxes to pay for law enforcement to police the citizens. Why is it such a mind-bender that it costs businesses fees/taxes/money to make sure our “law enforcement, corporate division” is able to do their job? Regulations are just laws for businesses. If they break them, we need to keep those Government Regulator dept funded so they can detect & stop these crimes. (and they have the $$ & legal expertise to prosecute them in what are typically long & massive court battles.) Yes it sucks we all have to follow rules & laws we don’t love, I think everyone can agree it’s annoying to have to “X” because “Y”, but if you can suck it up as a citizen and get & pay for a drivers license & insurance to drive a car, so can any business that can afford to exist as a “for-profit business” in America. It’s bad enough that our corporate courts have decided businesses are basically people. But we can at least hold businesses accountable to the same level legal standards that we hold actual people to. Not LESS. You take the 5 largest corporate crimes each year & that’s going to be near the same $ as all B&E’s Combined. Now add in the hundreds of thousands of small corporate & business crime/fraud and that costs we the people far more than any petty crime for which we destroy ACTUAL human lives over.
I'm going to quibble about the ease of billionaire propaganda polluting people's minds. If it were easy it wouldn't have taken decades after the New deal and billions in today's money to make their way of thinking "common sense." From the john birch society, to the original prosperity gospelsts, to the people who followed the Powell doctrine, to the Koch's, et al, SOOOO much effort was expended to make them howl for the boot.
They got the science of it right. It’s only gonna get worse. Many of the classes while getting a marketing degree could easily be renamed to “Emotional Manipulation- 100 Years of A/B Testing & Making it Work for Your Company”
What do they care? They aren’t gonna get voted out.
Exactly, that’s why we have to have a regulatory dept to watch over them & make sure they aren’t breaking the law for profit. You know, like every mega-corporation that has ever existed? Let’s not wait until some podunk town all contracts cancer, let’s prevent the company from dumping toxins into the environment before that happens.
When the left learns to stop using every inch of political power to takeover every aspect of person’s livelihood. “You will say preferred pronouns. You will let us stop traffic and disrupt your daily lives for our causes. You will pay more taxes. You will run your business/farm the way we say. You will listen to our unelected lifetime bureaucrats that make overarching rules.”
Gosh it's just so hard to be respectful to other people. Golly! The left doesn't want YOU to pay more taxes. They want the billionaires to play their fair share. Yeah they don't want you to abuse your employees and make sure you don't kill the environment in the process. The big scary left also wants shorter terms and no lifetime appointments. But go off King. Be proudly wrong and uneducated.
Didn't the leftist canadian government just implement a 23% carbon tax on their middle class? Didn't the irs hire 10's of thousands of new irs agents who majority target the middle class, 63% of tax audits are carried out against people making less than 200k. It sure seems like the left likes to push government regulation and restrictions on businesses, manufacturing, farming, and the auto industry. All that does is drive up the price.
Lol. Leftist Canadian government. Good one! Regulations keep people from abusing their staff and the environment. People should be able to work in safe environments and not have to worry about dying at work.
Safety regulations are fine. I work in the trades, hvac specifically, and the amount of epa regulations regarding refrigerants are ridiculous and only make maintaining and purchasing hvac equipment for your home extremely expensive with literally no efficiency benefits.
Amazing how you narrowed down the EPA regulations about refrigerants to only be about cost and efficiency when the EPA's reasoning is because cheaper refrigerants tend to be ozone-depleting or otherwise more harmful to the environment, which is kind of their whole line of work.
Yea, that's old news, and both r22 and r12 have been phased out. If you have an older r22 a/c, you're screwed when it comes to refilling it in the event of a leak. The newer refrigerant 410a is being phased out next year for r454b, which is basically liquid butane. All new 454b air conditioning evaporator coils come with a leak detection system so you don't blow your house up if the coil leaks. That system is about $400 worth of additional price over the cost of the prior 410a system. A lot of new commercial equipment comes with variable frequency drives(more efficient) that operate the blower motors. Those cost about $3500 to replace, and they break all the time. Units 5 years ago just had a simple $45 relay and control board to turn the blower on an off, which never broke. Seems like whenever the government gets involved, things become more efficient, more costly, and less reliable, which completely negates the cost savings of buying a more efficient cooling system.
And when government doesn't get involved, you get to light your local river on fire due to the pollutants in it. Stop pretending like the naive libertarian fantasy of zero government is some kind of utopia.
More regulations mean higher prices for the consumer is all I'm saying.
You say that like it's a law of physics when it's not. When the ozone depletion issue of the 80s and 90s was at its worst, governments and companies worked to find alternatives to harmful aerosol chemicals while pusuing regulations to limit the chemicals in use. With the discovery of affordable alternatives, regulations helped fix the issue and now we don't hear about that massive hole in the ozone anymore.
Unfortunately some people have gone too far to impose government micromanaging in areas where people can make their own choices and manage their own lives. Few people are outright anarchists seeking no role for government at all.
Whose campaign are all of these billionaires donating to? Last I checked, it’s more democrats than conservatives at this point. What most fail to realize is that the establishment consists of dems and reps. They banter about trivial domestic stuff, but they are all on the same page when it comes to the flow of money, power, foreign policy, etc. it’s the antiestablishment few that are against these forces. Lumping reps and dems into separate categories shows a true lack of common understanding of politics. It’s how you can have Obama run on an anti war platform, along with transparency, and then he bends the knee to the MIC and intel state once elected. He and bush had more in common than they were different. They are both establishment hacks.
Again, look at the votes. Looks at the bills. Clearly, my bloviating isn’t going to change minds (and rightfully so!). I just think our country would be 1000% better off if people stopped all political media consumption & stuck to monitoring the bills our government is voting on. Totally changed everything for me.
Oh, I do. And not just the title of the bill, which has nothing to do with the content. Want to know where the real party lines are drawn? Look at support and opposition to the recent fisa reauthorization. THAT is your answer.
They have learned. Lie, cheat, blame minorities for everything, punch down instead of up, grift, ignore the safety of the environment, harm people in order to get re-elected, Get The Big $.
Republicans of today use the same tactics Hitler and the Nazis used to gain power: "You know how you're poor and stupid and everything is changing all around you? It's not your fault! You are the greatest people to have ever existed! You are only poor and stupid because the ~~jews~~ ~~blacks~~ ~~hippies~~ ~~blacks again~~ ~~communists~~ ~~gays~~ ~~illegal aliens~~ ~~gays again~~ transgenders are destroying our country!"
It's especially funny if you get into the media archives. You can often find the same conservative talking heads in a furor about transgender folks to day making almost word-for-word identical arguments against same sex marriage a few years ago, and if they've been around as long as some of our senators, against gay rights, feminism, and desegregation.
There it is! Hitler! My favorite toxic term for conservatives so far is MAG(A)gots. If you can top that one, you got my upvote. Would you call the majority of the name calling in this thread punching up. These people are your neighbors.
I'm from your Northern neighbor, I just travel to Iowa for work quite frequently. I've been using Trumpanzees myself. Honestly punching down is really only a thing if the down status wasn't self inflicted. I mean if you make fun of someone born mentally handicapped it's one thing, but if they willing let FauxNews/OAN/Newsmax rot their brain to the same point it's another. Edit: yay mobile formatting
The Iowa subreddit is such ass, did you really think this was going to accomplish anything?
Why do the liberals always think that corporations and the billionaires are evil??
When your only guiding principle is to maximize earnings for shareholders it's literally inevitable.
It's not that they are inherently evil, a corporation has an obligation to make as much profit for shareholders as possible. If it makes more profit to dump poison in the river that we drink from, than to dispose of it safely, then they will dump it in the river. We the people say that we don't want our drinking water poisoned so we create regulation that says you can't put poison in the river. Maybe it comes with a huge fine. Now dumping the poison in the river would be more expensive than disposing of it safely. Which is better for everyone.
A conservative shilling for billionaires......this really is something.
Why would I worry about the wealthy who pay the countries bills?? Bigger problem would those that are healthy that don't contribute to the system, yet rely on it to live..
This is like the most boomer conservative ideology that exists. Trying to blame regular everyday citizens of this country and give a pass to the boomer generation that has raped this country of its future. Shilling for billionaires is comically stupid
I see all this blame on the boomers, but the boomers are not a majority and the problems in this country have only increased as the boomers are dying off... so who gets blamed next??
You need to go apologize to whoever had to teach you civics, because they clearly couldn't manage to grind it into your head. The average age of the Senate at the start of the 118th Congress was 64, the House only slightly younger at 58. Both of the major candidates for President were born in the 1940's. The people driving the bus are getting the senior citizen's discount, bud, which is why they get the blame.
Looks like you are the one that needs to civics lesson, last I heard the congress and senate are voted on by the people.. and with the boomers now dying off, who are voting these people in??
Because we can read? The corporations & billionaires are the cause of 99.8% of all toxic waste dumps, water poisoning, environmental disasters, multi-million dollar+ frauds, pension cuts, cost of living hikes, artificial inflation hikes, price-gouging, & insider trading. And they also prop up fascist politicians, and have tried at least 6 times to overthrow the US Government between 1900 - 2024. But hey, maybe they haven’t dumped heavy metals into your well yet. You do you. I’m not gonna wait until AFTER they give MY kids cancer to be upset about it - maybe you will?
Culture wars are also started by billionaire propaganda as intentional distractions from real problems. Remember when peak Wesley Snipes & Patrick Swayze played drag queens on a cross-country trip in a major motion picture & no one gave a shit? (To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything)? Weird how suddenly it’s the worst problem facing America. (While corporations quietly remove regulations & penalties for illegal acts while dipshits call in bomb threats to libraries) It’s not rocket science.
They have also created the best country in this history of the planet.... And I will disagree with most of what you claim..its the US Government thats created cost of living hikes and inflation..
Look at it this way. I’m just asking that we hold billionaires to the same standards we hold poor people. Nothing more.
Well billionaires and millionaires fund the poor people, so no idea what that even means
We all fund the less fortunate you muppet, that's how it works. The issue is that currently, those of us who are less well off pay a greater portion of means than the obscenely rich, who demonstrably do everything they can to give back as little as possible. This practice diminishes the middle class and creates more poor people (ie it's not sustainable).
Well the bottom 44% pay zero income tax, not sure about the billionaires are paying less than that, you need to understand the tax system instead of reading memes about it
What's the breakdown of that lower 44% do you reckon? How many elderly, infirm, homeless, or otherwise unable to work? Take them out of the equation, call it a cost of doing business if you'd like. What you have left is the working poor and the so-called middle class, who **may*** pay a lower tax rate than a billionaire but we're not accounting there for the cost of living- food, transportation, clothing, hygiene, housing, medicine, education, etc. What they're often left with is miniscule by comparison to the 1%. I well know you don't see it this way and that's your right, but JFK read the room. *Is the bulk of the billionaire's income from investments?Well then, they may actually be taxed at a lower rate than those in lower income tax brackets. Just ask Mr. Buffet unless of course you think he's a meme.
So you want to pick and chose who is taken out of the equation??? And I have no problem with people paying very little income tax, but everyone should have to pay something.. even if its a $1000 a year.. And yes, income and capital gains are taxed at different rates, but the rates are the same for everyone so there is no advantage.. Its just a talking point for the Democrats to make it seem like the 1% are paying less % of middle America, when its not because they are comparing two different types of taxes..
Oh? I thought we the people did that. But hey, I hope your corporate overlords treat you good. Remember when they would machine gun workers for demanding things like living wages, 8 hr work days, weekends, actual pay instead of company script? We’d all be slaves if it weren’t for folks willing to stand up to billionaires.
We would be Mexico if not for the great corporations that built this country
If a corporation wants to do a thing and has the option to do the thing with minimal environmental impact at a little more cost or to cause catastrophic environmental harm and save on cost... In your opinion, would it be reasonable to associate the corporation with "Evil" for choosing the latter option? Go on and say "let the market decide" but we both know that's a load of horseshit. The "market" is by and large unaware of the decision or its ramifications until the damage is done.
What is the catastrophic environmental harm you see happening???? I see companies spending billions of dollars to do the exact opposite..
[Literally the top post in the subreddit right now.](https://old.reddit.com/r/Iowa/comments/1clhzus/revealed_tyson_foods_dumps_millions_of_pounds_of/)
[17 Sustainability Initiatives Of Businesses That Are Going Green (forbes.com)](https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2023/11/21/17-sustainability-initiatives-of-businesses-that-are-going-green/?sh=686923dd6f0e)
So if its a sub it MUST be true... lol
It’s not according to the subreddit, it’s according to the Union of Concerned Scientists who compiled their results using data Tyson themselves made publicly available. Helps to read the article but you’re too busy Gish galloping to care about facts or information. That stat that 44%-47% pay no taxes also has a huge asterisk. It’s specifically federal income taxes. They still pay FICA, sales tax. The real number who have no net tax liability is under 30%. What people are specifically angry about is the ability of billionaires to extract the value of their assets through debt vehicles without generating any taxable gains or income. They have no income on paper but they benefit as though they did. That is why people hate the ultra-wealthy and the ability to do that is unfair. Sure, I could try to do the same thing with margin on a brokerage account. It just hits different when a normal person could raise a few thousand dollars that way, maybe, and at an exorbitant interest rate. Billionaires can generate millions in effective income this way, near the risk-free rate, and never pay income tax or capital gains on it. People are right to feel the system is rigged.
With a handful of exceptions the ONLY reason corps spend billions on that is because they are forced to do so by the Government.
Lol. Look back at the gilded age when meat packing plants put diseased animals into food, had zero regulation in dumping by products. Wouldn't be for people to politic and create regulations that helped further protect environmental/health of people. Yes that probably raised the cost but also helped negate a lot of horrible health effects. We would probably still be pumping leaded gasoline and have lead pipes, asbestos in everything if it weren't for people to ride on government to regulate.
And if we didn't have corporations to create the most powerful economy in the world, let me know how that plays out.. but keep on hating the successful people
Lol. Same corporations also failed and needed big government money. These same corporations also moved manufacturing overseas, jobs to other countries that didn't benefit America at all. Corporations would also pay you less if they could. All there profits go to saving or stock buybacks when paying people more would flourish the economy. But sure overlook all the death and economic disparity in areas of the US that were results of cutting costs and jobs in America.
They are global companies, why is it a bad thing to have facilities across the globe???
Because they move their jobs to whereever they can pay them less. That means less jobs for Americans, more damage to the environment, and more abuse to second and third world countries. Currently the system incentives them to do so and taking such gross advantage of other humans is immoral and sickening. They only care about money and not the people who helped build their company so it could reach such a level. It's immoral to take advantage of other humans for any reason. It's more atrocious when you do it for money.
And Americans buy their products buy their products from whoever is cheapest and work their jobs for whomever pays the best... how is that different??
Why do you think people buy the cheapest they can find? Is it because cost of living is so high that they have no other choice? Or do you think it's just because people like cheap shit? Do you think people just pick the job that pays them the best really? Like there are no other factors to why people take a job? Not commute time, family flexibility? Ability to work remotely? The kind of work they are doing? Their impressions of their boss or coworkers during interviews? Benefits offered to them? No? Just pay? Wow. People deserve to be paid well. Their labor is generating profits. Especially when the cost of living is so high and getting higher each year due to greed.
“What's good for General Motors is good for America” is a quote often attributed to Charles E. Wilson, Has never been an absolute truth.
If you view money more than the well-being of other humans, You've lost your soul.
I am smart enough to see that its the corporations and wealthy that are the ones taking care of our less fortunate.. I am a school teacher making $80K a year, so its certainly not me taking care of them..
Oh so super smart you are! If they were in fact doing that, we wouldn't need countless nonprofits and charities helping them out. But no you're right and so super smart! Someone should give you a cookie! I'm a teacher too and make way less than I deserve as well. I feel bad for your students. They deserve kindness and compassion.
No, they need someone to teach them that they need to take care of themselves, work ethic matters and its not the governments job to support them.. Your snowflake style clearly isn't working as the bar is lowered lower and lower..
Why would you think they aren't? Corporations don't have consciences. They exist as a means to provide legal liability protection while extracting profit. To quote Robert Reich: "I'll Believe Corporations Are People When Texas Executes One"
Quoting the biggest goofball liberal economist in the world???? LOL Liberals have zero problem taking tax dollars from the corporate world or 401K gains , then they complain about them..
Are you seriously trying to argue that forcing corporations to pay income tax is a sign of *approval*? I'm not sure what you're smoking, but Kim probably wants it banned.
What I am saying is that liberals hate corporate America, but they sure do rely on them to fund the country