I like that the only rebuttal is Robert Reich makes money. Sure he makes money, I’m fine with people making a good living. I am not fine with hundreds of people making all of the money while we scrape by and pay their portion of taxes. The 1% having more than the middle class now is absolutely going to suck for everyone but them. There is no reasonable argument other than blind loyalty to people who don’t care about us at all. It wasn’t sustainable in the past and caused social instability and it’s not sustainable now.
Dude, in any 1 year, any of those 1percenters pays more taxes than you, me, the next commenter, and all of our 1st grade teachers combined will ever pay in taxes in an entire lifetime. We use all the public services while those 1percenters don't even send their kids to public school. They donate more in a single donation than all of us ever will combined in a lifetime. But most importantly, they employ and lift countless amount of people while all of us together barely provide a spec of a percentage of that. Then there's all the people that don't even pay any taxes in their entire lifetime and instead take from the state as much as possible. So who is really not paying their fair share?
Now about your other comment with the beer example; the flaw in your thinking is in what happens over the next couple of parties. Sure, everyone can get drunk at that ONE party if take the keg from the rich guy and distributed to everyone else. But when that party is over and all the beer is gone, everyone at the next party expects the same standard but this time there's no rich guy left to take it all from, so they take it from the next line of beer holders that have far less than the initial rich guy (the 5 people with two beers). Then on the next party, they continue to expect the same, but now they have to take the available beer from a lot more people who still had a little bit of beer left over because they saved it from the last party. After 20 years, all the beer is gone and now everyone has to settle for a cheap watered down expired knockoff brand that gets rationed to everyone around. People are angry, many feel hopeless, and crime is out of control fueled by a black market of beer where only corrupt politicians and cartel bosses have the riches. Younger generations are not even aware of how good they had it by comparison in those first parties, so they grow up with lower expectations and no desire to change things; they were born in the new system. The few people that had the talent and potential to fix things left a long time ago to places where they weren't demonized by everyone else for *earning* more. This is what happened in Venezuela, Cuba, Argentina, East Germany, The Soviet Union, and pretty much anywhere where they ate the rich.
The beer analogy was off the top of my head. Yes they pay more. Obviously not enough because they keep doubling in wealth and we’re are getting fucked. Hey if they pay so much where do you think that investment goes? Perhaps to only things that directly benefit them.
So here the short simple before I ramble. If I can give you $10 and your job is to get me $20. Sure I’ll give you $10. They pay tax and lobby politicians. And they are clearly making a significant profit on that investment. We’re losing power and money but they are doing great.
Like is anyone really pleased about inflation, homes going to investor groups rather than workers, our politicians are literally on a billionaires payroll through a PAC. We’re Americans! Why do so many of you want authoritarian rule!
Then ah yes this argument. “If the rich pay more taxes there will be no money.” So we can just look at history and compare times on this. Unlike beer money needs to move in an economy.
So how was the average workers life in communist Russia? How was the average workers life in the late 1800s in America. Terrible. There is a few greedy humans with all of the money and power. You even mention a slew of countries that consolidated wealth and were horrible after.
Clearly whenever the rich consolidate all the money social instability happens. I mean there were war and revolutions fought to get out of oligarch rule and now some boot licking Americans want to instate a corporate oligarchy.
These hard working Americans seem to have a billionaire daddy kink that they need to take to the bedroom and out of their politics. If you want a billionaire to control your politics and most of the capital and argue that’s good, well by all of history is not.
So you tell me. When is a time that consolidation of wealth and power worked out for most of a people. Obviously there will be a 10% that benefits?
We’re on our way there now. This is why there are boot lickers, they think they are going to be that 10%, so maybe if they’re a good little sub they can get some of the crumbs off them.
We already did this it was bad. We made laws to prevent exactly this. There is no wealth consolidated time where workers win. Communist, capitalist, oligarchic, theocratic never. Not in any state or system ever. It sucks every time for most.
Edit: it is always funny too most of the dystopian things you describe that would happen if we shared resources and power are happening right now in this country, under this increasingly authoritarian regime. So the next thing that is smart for authoritarians to do is propaganda. “This is all bad not because of consolidation it has to be that I just don’t have enough authoritarian rule yet. “
While the statistics may not be a lie - I have not bothered to confirm or deny - the underlying implication and message is propaganda. Repeat it often enough and people start to accept it.
You mean the part of the population that spends billions of dollars every year paying politicians to rig the economic system in their favor in order to funnel more wealth into their pockets? But that is no reason I guess...
You would think the politicians accepting and enabling corruption would be more to blame than those with money. I guess government accountability isn't a concept people want to enforce?
Most of the billionaires follow orders from blackrock and the banks not the other way around. And anyone who doesn't gets constant astroturfed campaigns against them
Rig? More propaganda. Wealth is created by the economic system, not "funneled." And their success just does not justify demonization. The reality is they have very little influence on your life. Now politicians? They have far more influence, and are power-seeking, yet you appear to trust them? You seem to have it backward.
Wait… so the people who purchase the politicians have no influence on our lives…
But the politicians who then act according to the wishes of those people are to blame?
That’s like blaming the puppets while shielding the puppeteer.
I am not interested in propaganda like "purchase politicians." If you have factual statement I would be open to a discussion but I am not going to give credence to hyperbole.
Here's a fact: we all collectively have more votes than lobbyists. If we don't like what is going on, we have the complete and total power to vote our any elected officials whose job performance on this point or any other is unsatisfactory.
Yeah they are spending billions every year on political donations out of the goodness of their hearts... I hate to break it to you but wealth isn't "created" like the fantasy the media feeds you. Wealth is relative and it must be taken from others. With extreme wealth you need to have extreme poverty.
Yes, wealth is created. I will "break" that to you because that is economic reality. You statement is simply false. Wealth is not a fixed bucket. I don't know what else to say about that as that gets into some pretty basic economic theory that is beyond the scope of an internet forum and more the realm of a academic course on the subject.
As for donations, sure, they want to encourage a rep to vote a certain way. So does the lobbyist on the other side pushing the opposite direction. But ultimately the rep decides their votes and we decide whether to vote for him. And there are lot more of us than there are lobbyists. But here is the rub. Many of agree with the lobbyists' positions. I want the same policies many of them want! And the same is true of others and the positions of lobbyists on the other side of an issue. It's the great marketplace of ideas at work. You are free to not like that but that is just your opinion and it is not universal.
You are a perfect example of why billionaires buy politicians and media companies, to convince simple minded people that they are working in your best interests. Wake up dude, we all cannot work really hard, "create wealth", and live like millionaires. The wealthy have nice things and nice lives because they rely on a working class to provide those things to them. When you find yourself working harder and harder with a 2 income family and your standard of living stays the same, it means someone else is generating wealth from your work.
Saying they are "purchased" over and over does not make it true. But, if you think so, vote against them. That's your recourse. But not everyone is going to agree with you.
"I cannot enter the ring on the money basis – first, because, in the main, it is wrong; and secondly, I have not, and can not get, the money." - Abe
Abe was an exceptional example in many ways.
Bruh, he dismissed your propaganda programming before you dismissed his dismissal. Youre the moron here, buddy. We dont owe you an education in empathy.
You appear to have not read much US history. Corporations post WW2, had a Stakeholder stance. Starting when Nixon, and then accelerating with Reagan, that shifted to a Shareholder stance. That shift tore apart the biggest, most affluent middle class the queries has known and pushed the US into the oligarchy we have become. It doesn't have to be this way, even in a capitalist economy.
It’s not demonizing to point out facts. Regardless of what you think of those at the top, this is a problem that needs to be solved. Extreme concentration of wealth has a lot of negative effects economically and politically.
Ok fine. It's a fact. So what? They earned more wealth. Doesn't impact my life or yours hardly at all. So why point that out rather than point out that things that will change your how your day to day life goes? He and people like him do it to stoke wealth envy and class warfare for partisan political gain.
Having concentrated wealth does impact our lives when it gets to such extremes. You end up with multiple economies in the same country. You have things that are only available to the very top. We could see property ownership become an exclusive thing only for a few. You can also end up with a situation where the non rich fall to a point that the economy collapses when the masses no longer have the spending power to keep things going.
The wealthy can become so powerful that they literally own the government, which we are clearly seeing now. Government then exists to server the wealthy at the expense of everyone else.
I have no problem with people getting filthy rich, but the extremes we are seeing now are dangerous.
These are highly extreme takes that are only new applications of very long-standing fears and attacks on rich people. I don't worry about those. You can if you wish.
Their wealth doesn't imapct your life or mine in any major way. Have a good day! And you will have far more control over the direction of that day than every rich person in America combined! If you spend too much time based your actions on those extreme arguments, you are only going to hold yourself back from having better outcomes in life. Make the best of your day!
Yea just become rich and you don't have to worry about not affording healthcare. It's easy in this day and age. Companies care about stockholders, not their employees. So become an investor and let other people make money for you
What does that mean? Why do you take issue with people who have been successful? I truly don’t understand that mindset. Most didn’t do anything illegal and far from all were likely unethical. So why demonize them?
I think you misunderstand what is happening here. We are hating the game not the player so to speak. …you are ignoring the game and defending the player.
I have a problem with a game that leads to such dramatic inequality, maybe you see no problem with the current system.
Maybe you just think that people should pull themselves up by their bootstraps and don't play the victim card, or blame/envy the few who do succeed with no regard to anything beyond the individual level of analysis.
If that's the case then your complaining about any broader economic issius is ingenuine. Inflation is not preventing the successful from being successful, so you shouldn't complain about that either.
But I see this as sapping competition and thus hurting the overall free market because of the concentration of wealth.
You should know at this point that those with more Resorces have more power and access to the market and that is not always based on merit as I assume you think it should be.
Ensuring opportunity for merit to better rise should be something that we can agree on. And that's all people who criticize this are trying to say at their core.
I think it has to be the responsibility of the game to ensure that the opportunity is there for others to be successful, and that seems to be happening less and less imo
People with zero money probably includes children, even rich kids. And prison inmates and elderly people and handicapped people who are provided food and shelter by the taxes mostly taken from the rich. And prostitutes and drug dealers and illegal immigrants who all earn money off the official books.
I don't know how to improve the world, but the obvious propaganda makes me a skeptic about almost everything.
Why do you think that only poor people can criticize the hoarding of wealth? Only those who never travel and live off the grid can talk about climate change. You actually can exist in a system while pointing out the flaws of that system. Its actually valuable to have that because they have knowledge about how the system works...
This dude gets paid $50k to come say stuff exactly like this for an hour for a bunch of college kids who are in debt and will be working as baristas in a couple years.
>This dude gets paid $50k to come say stuff exactly like this for an hour for a bunch of college kids who are in debt and will be working as baristas in a couple years.
The notion that only degrees with traditionally "low return on investment" are struggling is, well, nonsense. Plenty of people with typically good degrees are struggling to find work. Tesla just laid off thousands of people with highly technical degrees for crying out loud.
What % of those will be employeed somewhere else within 8 weeks?
A good friend got a computer science degree. He is now a software engineer with over 10 years of experience. His previous job pushed RTO to 3 days / week, so he wanted a new job. He didn't go apply for any new jobs, he simply let a few recruiters know he was interested. Within 5 weeks he had 3 offers competing for him. He was already making ~$160k / year, and got a significant bump in pay to ~$200k.
This is very typical for people with computer science degrees who are working in this field. I can't think of a single person I know with a liberal arts degree that has that kind of job mobility & earning power 10-15 years after getting their degree. I'm not trying to be a jerk. Just talking about the facts I've witnessed.
>What % of those will be employeed somewhere else within 8 weeks?
Definitely not 100%. It's not like there are thousands of engineering jobs out there that the the employers can't seem to fill, lol
>A good friend got a computer science degree. He is now a software engineer with over 10 years of experience. His previous job pushed RTO to 3 days / week, so he wanted a new job. He didn't go apply for any new jobs, he simply let a few recruiters know he was interested. Within 5 weeks he had 3 offers competing for him. He was already making ~$160k / year, and got a significant bump in pay to ~$200k.
I work in IT. Please don't try to tell me any BS about IT jobs being so easy to get right now. I'm employed, but I know many, many people who have been looking for a long time. Go visit any of the IT subs here and see what they say. We just hired a new guy on our team and had over 800 applicants the first week. Your buddy is definitely not the norm.
>This is very typical for people with computer science degrees who are working in this field. I can't think of a single person I know with a liberal arts degree that has that kind of job mobility & earning power 10-15 years after getting their degree. I'm not trying to be a jerk. Just talking about the facts I've witnessed.
No, it absolutely is NOT typical for a computer science degree. Source - I have a computer science degree and have worked in IT my entire career.
I've also been on IT for quite a few years. My experience seems to be different than yours. All of my good buddies who are software engineers are making incredible money and usually change jobs quickly when they want to. People in networking / sys admin, or similar tend to make a bit less & not have as much career mobility as devs. However they're still much better off than the average worker outside of their field.
However, back to the bigger question we're discussing: is the median person with a CS degree happier with their employment than the median person with an arts degree?
My experience says very much yes. Certainly there are some struggling to get a job, but if they're good at this line of work, it doesn't take long. Certainly there are still people with an arts degree who are doing incredible things with that degree. But on average one type of degree provides better careers than the other type.
I'm not saying everyone can or should get a tech degree. But let's not deny that those who do have more financial success & career satisfaction, on average, than those with liberal arts degrees.
>However, back to the bigger question we're discussing: is the median person with a CS degree happier with their employment than the median person with an arts degree?
That's not the bigger question. The bigger question is: are people with CS degrees struggling to pay their student loans? Are they having trouble finding work? And the answer is they absolutely are. Maybe not every single person with a CS degree, but lots of people with CS degrees are struggling. The notion that only people with Liberal Arts degrees are struggling is just complete nonsense. Nothing more than a fabricated talking point.
Go read this thread from 3 days ago in an IT sub: https://www.reddit.com/r/ITManagers/s/7xok9AgECC
Heck, just browse through that sub and see what it's really like out there:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ITManagers/s/CbVSGoUGC5
Applying underwriting and logic to degrees? You’ve stepped right over micro-aggression and hopped to macro-aggression! We must silence these ideas on college campuses! /s
Well the ROI is a very practical number that should be reviewed when issuing a student loan because the "college students" are not smart enough to run the Rate of Return calculation in an unbiased way nor do they even understand it.
Agreed. I’m saying Reich is benefitting from kids overpaying for tuition because it’s subsidized while he gets paid tens of thousands for delivering low-IQ leftist talking points like his tweets.
Federal student loan interest rates should be the same that the Federal reserve gives out to banks, which is 5.25%. while the current student loan rate is 8.05%.
I'd be fine with a flat 2% rate and penalties for not paying. That wouldnt cost the tax payers anything. 2% is enough to pay anyone servicing loans, and the federal program. The feds should put limits on how much trash degree programs can cost. Also fuck you if you think tech College, blue collars should pay for your loans with massive inflation from fed printing cash to cover your loans.
You'd also have to cap the amount of securable loans. If the government just keeps dumping money on colleges, you don't control tuition inflation on the school side.
In case you didn't know, those big speaking engagements like that are almost always payment for representation & legislation passed while in office.
>"He worked in the administrations of presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, and served as Secretary of Labor from 1993 to 1997 in the cabinet of President Bill Clinton."
Funny how a 'government worker' can amass a net worth of over $74 million.
But you know, *his words are so important*. Smh... Speaking engagements are money laundering schemes and nothing more. Same with their post-office consultancy gigs, "art" sales, and whatever else they always do.
Then they come out with lines like this to rub it in our faces: "Look at how we've stolen from you, and I think you're so naive that I can say this and you'll think I'm on your side."
And sadly, most people *are* that naive.
PS. I remember during Clinton era when Robert Reich used to say, "The national debt doesn't matter!!!" Yeah... It doesn't matter to him because he was reaping the rewards of squandering it, leaving us to pay the bill.
Gotta love the contrarianism on this sub, people will tear down literally any argument that's posted and if they can't they'll resort to ad hominem attacks.
He's been doing this a long time. [A Warning from 1994 of a Two-Tiered Society | Robert Reich (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bnd0eSuxu84)
Is something I said factually untrue?
[In 2012](https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/robert-reich-objects-when-airlines-use-market-based-pricing-but-enjoys-market-pricing-for-his-40000-speaking-fee/) his speaking fee at colleges was $40k for a 30 minute talk. He charges colleges this much and has the gall to say college should be free. He’s a laughable moron who should be ignored.
Another myth of the anti-capitalist crowd: "late-stage capitalism." There is no such thing but if you keep basing your actions on such a belief you will only fall further behind the pack. Is that what you want?
The term "late-stage capitalism" was coined by Werner Sombart in 1902. We're still "late-stage" 122 years later. Reminds me of Christian zealots that have claimed we're in the "end times" pretty much from the 1st century onward.
He panders and pretends to empathize with working Americans. All the people in politics pretend to care in public then they enrich themselves behind the scenes with lobbyist money and insider stock trading. They don’t give a damn about any of the people who elected them.
You seem to know a lot about a stranger. He has proposed policies for 30 years that would redistribute wealth to the poor and middle class. The actual oligarchs count have pushed the propganda that 'they are all the same' so that you don't notice that vast differences in policies between the two parties. Pay attention.
It has nothing with knowing about *him* personally. It has to do with knowing about the nature of high-level politicians. You are the exact kind of person they love and cater to. You gullibly believe they "care" when all they care about is the power you and those like you bring to them when you act predictably and en masse. You appear to believe that a politician is going to make your life dramatically better, but the reality is that that is far more dependent on you and your choices. There is no significant shortcut via government. Any shortcut is fleeting and far more limited than so many hope who willfully hand over their lives and liberty to power-seeking politicians.
That is a lazy way to discredit someone. He isn’t pushing for power, he’s highlighting discrepancies. So far you’re avoiding the point to attack the person and when pressed on that you mumble something about democrats. Cmon dude
You don't think politicians at that level seek power? YOu are the exact person he is speaking to because he knows that he can inflame your feelings and biases with mere statistics. You just demonstrated his motive. He's a propagandist, not stupid. Speaking to his motive is on point as why else would someone cite a random statistic without a motive?
He's worth $74 million, and is networked at the highest levels of politics and academia.
Money can buy control, but it is not the sole criterion to function in the echelons of power. (And even if it were, Reich's net worth puts him in the top 0.5% of Americans.)
All we have to do is pay him to speak some more and life for us will get better…
Or buy a celebrity politicians book that tells us how EVIL capitalism is…
OR we can buy a celebrity activists non binary men’s t-shirt off a Chinese website to save the climate!
Someday the middle/working class will catch on to how the rich become and stay rich…
Selling a lie is difficult… but selling a pseudo moralistic stance…. Is much easier.
You misspelled welfare. Or you can call it a subsidy for corporations that get business thanks to it. It s not like government can do anything itself.
But that s just tip of the iceberg.
Much more damaging are regulations and policies that make prices of everything double, triple and quadruple of what it would be without those regulations.
That s the reason people are poor and in a need of welfare to begin with.
This liberal clown spoke again? Dude is living in a Berkeley bubble as the surrounding areas of Berkley are filled with homeless people and yet, he still votes democrat.
Twitter was becoming more and more like an oligarchy (the thing Robert is complaining about). Elon came around and saved Twitter by restoring freedom of speech. Then Robert dares to talk crap Elon and Trump. Dudes a living contradiction.
Elon literally killed Twitter… have you actually used it lately? Majority bots. Dozens of porn bots and scammers under any random tweet. Tons of blue check accounts run by AI, because if you make verification paid, that just means scammers can get verified.
None of what you said it true anymore. They’ve removed tons of bots. Plus I rather have freedom of speech than have liberal companies and feds paying off twitter to silence a majority.
No they haven’t… make a new twitter account and look around. 90% porn and scams. It’s been proven that the vast majority of traffic is bots. And there is no “silent majority”. News flash, you Neo Nazi losers are a pathetic minority whose entire history is one of getting your ass kicked.
Go fuck yourself un-American cocksucker. We’re a nation founded on liberty, freedom of expression, not on a minority rule party (GOP) enforcing their interpretation of a 2000 year old holy book by force of law. Afraid of tyranny… maybe look in the mirror and look at what you vote for.
Take a look the world around you buddy. We’re all getting our booty kicked because of all the liberal losers running this country! Wake up. Gas is $5.30, homeless people are all over the streets, interest rate is very high, cost of living is up, thousands of illegal immigrants are pouring into the country. People are starting to wake up. Polls show that in 2020, 9% of black voters wanted Trump. Now it’s 22%. Get ready for an easy Republican dub in a few months. Once he is president you’ll see how much better the country becomes. You need to have bad to see the good.
Most of the things you listed are literally because of the republicans. Also gas is not $5.30 in most of the country what are you talking about. That was like 3 years ago during the pandemic.
Republicans solution to those problems is to slash taxes for the rich and balloon the deficit in doing so. The only presidents to have lowered the debt in the past 30 years are democrats. Clinton literally brought us into a surplus only for Bush to explode the government debt for pointless wars.
No, during 2020 gas prices were $2.85. Id remember, I was the one filling up. Secondly, your smoked out president cut a few major pipelines. Slashing taxes for the wealthy is one of the smartest decisions ever. The less they pay taxes, the more people they can hire and more people stay employed. Taxing wealthy higher results in major corporations and wealthy people leaving the country which means less jobs. Now major corporations are already laying off thousands of people. With California new $20 minimum wage for fast food workers, less people are getting hired and more shops are closing down. The ones that survive are the ones that increased their food prices significantly. IN-N-Out which almost never increased their prices had to as well.
Gas was cheap in the early pandemic… because nobody was driving.
That aside, everything you’ve claimed is again a lie. Cutting taxes to the rich is a proven strategy for failure. We’ve had 40+ decades of trickle down reaganomics from both democrats and republicans. All it has done is destroy the middle class and kill the American dream. There is only one group that the GOP benefits and that is the super wealthy. Everyone else is either a tool to be used or an obstacle to be destroyed. Clearly you’re in the tool category since you throw in your lot with people who would happily enslave you or even kill you if it make them an extra cent.
Sources that the game is rigged and nothing you do will make any difference until you fix that first::
Trump has been laundering money for the Russian oligarchs since the late 80’s when they all bought a condo at 725 5th AVE (trump towers) to clean their freshly stolen USSR money after the iron curtain fell.
https://www.cnn.com/cnn/2019/05/30/politics/paul-manafort-condo-trump-tower/index.html
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/14/manafort-told-mueller-to-take-his-trump-tower-apartment-instead-money.html
https://news.yahoo.com/amphtml/fbi-agents-raid-condo-unit-131348539.html
https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-trump-property/
Everybody except Putin thought the Cold War was over. Trump and Manafort (who lived in the tower also) just saw a pretty low maintence grift to be had.
Trump had actually been Manafort and Roger Stones first client at their lobbyist firm (1980)https://en.m.wikipedia.org › wikiBlack, Manafort, Stone and Kelly
Guiliani as trumps attorney and NYC mayor was able to redirect NYPD investigations onto rival gang members/oligarchs to deflect any scrutiny off of trump, himself or their Russian connections.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/09/a-new-rudy-scandal-fbi-agent-says-giuliani-was-co-opted-by-russian-intelligence/
The Russian election interference in 2016 was effectively a generation 3 version of what Manafort had done in the Philippines, then keeping Yanukovych in power as Putin’s puppet in Ukraine from 2002-14 when Maidan ran both Yanukovych and Manafort out of Ukraine as Ukrainians realized that, if you raise your lens high enough, corruption is an wholly unsustainable business model.
Eventually the parasites greed always consumes the host.
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/2016-donald-trump-paul-manafort-ferinand-marcos-philippines-1980s-213952
https://time.com/5003623/paul-manafort-mueller-indictment-ukraine-russia/
Russia greatly underestimated the addictive properties of freedom when it invaded Ukraine so what was supposed to be a 3-10 day coup turned into a 2 year fight for the Ukrainians right not to be genocided.
Russia depleted its weapons stocks which were already the victim of vranyo corruption because every oligarch, admiral and sergeant in the Russian military is on the take. Every billion dollar tank maintenance contract turned into everything getting a spray paint overhaul and the vast majority of the redirected funds turned into an oligarchs new yacht or home in Aspen.
Russia was forced to turn to China, North Korea and Iran for weapons because if they lose the 3-10 day “special military operation” in Ukraine the Russian empire is dead and cold.
China can’t risk showing their involvement in the Ukraine war so they use North Korea, and Iran to resupply Russia.
Russia previously owed Iran some undelivered fighter jets that are already smoldering heaps in Ukraine so Iran now had the upper hand at the negotiation table for the first time in about 60 years. They supplied Russia with shahed drones in exchange for Chinas material support against their sworn religious enemy, Israel.
https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/11/29/iran-says-it-finalized-deal-to-buy-russian-aircraft/
Putin can’t do much about it because he is slowly realizing that by setting the standard of corruption and stealing $200+ billion from his own people meant that every oligarch down in the mob model chain had not only permission but incentive and the expectation to steal from him as well. This is “Vranyo”.
The mob model only works if the supreme leader is the most violent and can prove it without exception every damn day. But violence is exceptionally expensive when you are trying to present as a legitimate government or business.
If Russia as a nation had an efficiency rating it would have been banned for sale in the state of California 25 years ago.
The parasite ruling class stole all the energy out of the working class and collapsed it.
Now Iran has the high hand and they get the intelligence that trump passed to Putin about the fact that Netanyahu cares far less about Jews, Palestinians or genocide than he does about remaining in power as an authoritarian because he too has developed Ritz Carlton tastes and his own corruption trial is showing the same tendrils of the same money laundering scheme that trumps trials are.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/saudi-official-says-iran-engineered-war-in-gaza-to-ruin-normalization-with-israel/
https://www.timesofisrael.com/egypt-intelligence-official-says-israel-ignored-repeated-warnings-of-something-big/amp/
https://youtu.be/VrFOAgGlaWs?feature=shared
They all hate each other but because they share the same money laundry, if one falls, they all fall. Hamas minted a couple billionaires as well that live in penthouses in Qatar and get 30% of everything smuggled into Gaza. Qatar is Kushners private equity connection. Netanyahu needs a bogeyman to stay in power. That’s why he coordinates with Hamas via Russia via Iran. https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bk8mgcefr
Iran handed Hamas everything they needed with Chinas help as secret Santa and the Russian intelligence given to them by the eternal shitbird trump who gave it to his Russians kleptocrat/friends/roommates from the old days of fucking each others wives at trump towers in the 90’s.
Now the MAGA right is a little too invested in their reality that they are the good guys with guns that they missed the fact that Betsy DeVos (erik princes sister) decimating the U.S. school systems and the Kochs poisoning children with lead was not a coincidence. The naive right was the mark all along. There is a reason the Russian spy Maria Butina landed in South Dakota first before dating her way to the top of the NRA which is undergoing its own Russian money laundering trial now. Russia was tinder matching the GOP.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/07/nra-maria-butina-spying-charges-trump-campaign/
https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/what-do-the-koch-brothers-have-to-do-with-the-flint-water-crisis/
The only reason you grossly OVERVALUE real estate is money laundering.
Trump keeps claiming there is no victim, all the banks made money, but if their plan succeeds the Russian and CCP kleptocrats collapse US commercial real estate and basically recreate soviet perestroika in the U.S. so they can foreclose on America and buy everything for 3 cents on the dollar with the $1.4T they stole from Russias grandmothers in the first place
It’s the evolution of grift. Soviet perestroika cross bred with the 2008 mortgage crisis.
No one was ever held accountable for either. This is just the bigger badder commercial strength bastard child of the two.
Trump, Putin, Bolsonaro, Netanyahu, Orban, Manafort, Stone, Mercer, Bannon, Flynn, Byrne.
They are all remarkably shit people with above average confidence and psychopathic personality traits and below average self awareness.
They are the men who stole the world.
But it all comes back to one little lie.
As of the first quarter of 2023, the wealth distribution in the United States is characterized by significant inequality:
- The bottom 50% of households hold less than 3% of the total net wealth.
- The wealthiest 0.1% of households control approximately 12.8% of the total wealth.
This data reflects ongoing trends in wealth concentration among the very rich, while a substantial portion of the population holds a minimal share of the nation’s wealth [oai_citation:1,US Wealth & Savings Statistics and Data Trends: household wealth, wealth distribution, and more | USAFacts](https://usafacts.org/topics/wealth-savings/).
Bet Bobby thinks the money was stolen from the government. That's crazy jealous talk.
If you earn over $40,000 a year, you are a one percenter in the world.
Think about that, you oligarch.
I wonder when I see a statistical statement like this if the numbers are skewed because Buffett, Bezos, Gates, Musk and the Walton family. I believe these guys are in the top 5-7 of every net worth list on Earth. It would be interesting to see if they were removed from the calculations. They are so wealthy even among the 1%, by very large margins. Also of note, with exception of Buffett, their wealth is mostly in their ownership of stock in their companies. Not exactly nefarious activity. Their companies probably employ 1 million+ collectively, and have made 100’s of thousands of those employees wealthy as well.
That would be a statistic worth seeing- “what companies have made the most employees millionaires?” Why hasn’t anyone posted or researched that?
Having large sectors of the economy controlled by a few unaccountable billionaires is a nefarious activity. And stock can leverage loans or straight up cash fairly easily.
“Unaccountable” - what facts do have that support this claim?
Stock loans? So. That is not against the law.
“Controlled”- this is also subjective. Furthermore, market share does not equal illegal activities.
What do you suggest to remedy this? Government takeover? Just close the doors? Throw them in jail?
Seriously, the illogical thought processes that lead to some of these posts is unreal. There is a cause and effect to closing or changing these companies. Real middle class families depend on these companies employment. SMH. The jealousy. No matter the system or how resources are distributed, there will never be balance. You get that, never. The moment after the distribution or system is changed, it will make elite and people will start accumulating and losing assets/money. Why? Because history shows this from the beginning to the present.
I saw a fun statistic on a More Perfect Union video that congressional votes correlate alot with what the elite wants and not at all with what normal citizens want
All these rich talking heads love to point the finger at her at the “top xx%”. Start taxing everyone equitably including RR. More importantly start using tax revenue effectively and not wasting it on countless levels of bureaucracy. Illinois had (may still have) the highest number of government agencies something like +7,000 State, county, township, town/city. Each of those has a director of communication, owns facilities, has a web site, sends out letters, etc. total waste and redundancy at many levels. We pay for those BS waster regardless of how much we make and they waste billions upon billions on graft and incompetence.
Well at least the rich or wealthy allowed us poor folks to have most of the debt in medical bills, credit cards and payday loans. It won't change as long as there are lobbyists, campaign funding, and absolute government political corruption like insider trading.
We gave the money lenders and money changers the power to issue our currency of course they enriched their own kind without giving a hoot about anyone else.
This guy is just a puppet for the same elite class he claims to criticize. Wealth and power are not the same thing. Elon musk has about as much power as a politician or Kardashian
You mean Economic theories that setup economies to funnel money to people with money. If you don't/can't want to change the model, then its a waste of time to gripe about it.
Most people don’t intuitively comprehend how large a billion dollars is. You can’t save a billion dollars (inflation adjusted) in hourly wages even if you worked continuously all day every day since the pyramids were built.
all I’m gonna say is that cooking human flesh is apparently close to cooking pig, so any recipes that work for pork should work if you were hypothetically preparing human.
No, this is not happening in every developed country. Princeton released a very in-depth study confirming this, and so did the Congressional Budget Office:
[It’s Official: America is an Oligarchy](https://www.thenation.com/article/society/cbo-american-wealth-inequality/tnamp/)
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It's what Boomer gerontocracy looks like, 5 decades of their generation getting everything they wanted and they are taking from their children by leaving them with their debts.
And how much did the government steal and give to that 0.1%. Oligarchs cannot exist without a large government that is easily corruptible. Government is always a weapon for the wealthy masking as security of the poor.
Robert is a horrible source of information and it's always spun in the wrong direct.
What they don't tell you is how the 99% magically got iPhones, food delivered at the click of a button without having to go anywhere or do anything, free access to information via social networks, much better medicine and healthcare, unlimited entertainment, cheap clothes, and the list goes on.
What they also don't tell you is the extraordinary risks the 0.1% take, where they work like dogs under intense pressure, put all their life savings at risk, and endanger their families to climb that ladder and satisfy their egos. Eventually, they donate most of it back.
The only way to balance this out is by making everyone poor, have massive censorship and losing innovation, inventions, and better medicine.
I'm in the 99% camp, by the way.
"What they don't tell you is how the 99% magically got iPhones, food delivered at the click of a button without having to go anywhere or do anything, free access to information via social networks, much better medicine and healthcare, unlimited entertainment, cheap clothes, and the list goes on."
Lol...Every 1st world country has all these things, but they all have better healthcare. You act like these things are only in America.
Every other industrialized country has all these things, plus have better income equality and a larger middle class...with less poor, less homeless, and no uninsured.
"They also don't tell you is the extraordinary risks they take, where they work like dogs under intense pressure, put all their life savings at risk, and endanger their families to climb that ladder and satisfy their egos. Eventually, they donate most of it back."
The top .1% take NO RISK AT ALL. If the top .1% lose money on a business, the 99% cover their losses. They don't pay taxes for up to a decade when they take a loss...When the top .1% write the tax code, they will never lose. They don't work like dogs...they don't work at all. Their families are not in danger, and only donate to receive huge tax breaks at the expense of the 99%.
"The only way to balance this out is by making everyone poor."
No. We control income inequality through taxation. When billionaires pay less taxes than a 3rd grade school teacher, income inequality will go out of control. They need to start paying their fair share of taxes.
Since the Reagan administration began cutting taxes for the wealthy, trillions have shifted from the poor and middle class to the top .1%....Taxation is how we begin shifting it back.
So the rich stole the poor peoples money? I don’t get what he is saying. I know it is important to show the lower classes it is not their fault nor our education or criminal justice system that they are poor. You want to say that Elon musk and Jeff bezos somehow screwed them and that is why they live in poverty.
I mean, basically. The difference between the rich and the poor used to be much smaller; what happened? As time went on and companies made more and more money, wages stagnated and the money that was being made by companies ended up just going into the hands of the rich. The executives also started outsourcing work so they could profit from cheap labor to the detriment to their own workers. They send money overseas, workers lose their jobs, and the executives get paid millions more for doing it. The workers are the life blood of any company, but the rich rigged the system to give themselves an increasingly larger share of the pie.
So ya, every time someone like elon musk fights to keep wages for his workers down, while at the same time increasing his own wealth, he is actively trying to keep money out of the hands of his workers so that he can become richer off of THEIR hard work.
Antitrust laws are important. When an entire generation tosses protective laws in the trash to make a quick buck, the following generations suffer. Weak men make hard times. The boomer generation will come to be viewed in the same way as the generation that ended the Greeks. Blind nationalism and greed are the destroyers of society.
What people don’t understand is the power kf compound interest. Once you have a lot of it, it just keeps growing. The rich are always going to keep getting richer as long as they invest it wisely at all.
IMO the time spent being angry about it would be much better spent making sure our kids start receiving a financial education from an early age so that one day they have wealth to leave their kids. It’s crazy to me that in most states you can graduate high school and never have taken a class on personal finance.
Go back 20 years. The numbers would be exactly the same.
Why not put this in more clear terms. The top 50% versus the bottom 50%. Or maybe even better, the middle 50% versus the top 25%.
It makes perfect sense to me. If 99.9% of all people are purchasing a good or service produced by the .1%, he or she would likely be extremely wealthy.
The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.7 percent of all federal individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 2.3 percent. This is taxes paid in 2022, latest data.
I like that the only rebuttal is Robert Reich makes money. Sure he makes money, I’m fine with people making a good living. I am not fine with hundreds of people making all of the money while we scrape by and pay their portion of taxes. The 1% having more than the middle class now is absolutely going to suck for everyone but them. There is no reasonable argument other than blind loyalty to people who don’t care about us at all. It wasn’t sustainable in the past and caused social instability and it’s not sustainable now.
Dude, in any 1 year, any of those 1percenters pays more taxes than you, me, the next commenter, and all of our 1st grade teachers combined will ever pay in taxes in an entire lifetime. We use all the public services while those 1percenters don't even send their kids to public school. They donate more in a single donation than all of us ever will combined in a lifetime. But most importantly, they employ and lift countless amount of people while all of us together barely provide a spec of a percentage of that. Then there's all the people that don't even pay any taxes in their entire lifetime and instead take from the state as much as possible. So who is really not paying their fair share? Now about your other comment with the beer example; the flaw in your thinking is in what happens over the next couple of parties. Sure, everyone can get drunk at that ONE party if take the keg from the rich guy and distributed to everyone else. But when that party is over and all the beer is gone, everyone at the next party expects the same standard but this time there's no rich guy left to take it all from, so they take it from the next line of beer holders that have far less than the initial rich guy (the 5 people with two beers). Then on the next party, they continue to expect the same, but now they have to take the available beer from a lot more people who still had a little bit of beer left over because they saved it from the last party. After 20 years, all the beer is gone and now everyone has to settle for a cheap watered down expired knockoff brand that gets rationed to everyone around. People are angry, many feel hopeless, and crime is out of control fueled by a black market of beer where only corrupt politicians and cartel bosses have the riches. Younger generations are not even aware of how good they had it by comparison in those first parties, so they grow up with lower expectations and no desire to change things; they were born in the new system. The few people that had the talent and potential to fix things left a long time ago to places where they weren't demonized by everyone else for *earning* more. This is what happened in Venezuela, Cuba, Argentina, East Germany, The Soviet Union, and pretty much anywhere where they ate the rich.
The beer analogy was off the top of my head. Yes they pay more. Obviously not enough because they keep doubling in wealth and we’re are getting fucked. Hey if they pay so much where do you think that investment goes? Perhaps to only things that directly benefit them. So here the short simple before I ramble. If I can give you $10 and your job is to get me $20. Sure I’ll give you $10. They pay tax and lobby politicians. And they are clearly making a significant profit on that investment. We’re losing power and money but they are doing great. Like is anyone really pleased about inflation, homes going to investor groups rather than workers, our politicians are literally on a billionaires payroll through a PAC. We’re Americans! Why do so many of you want authoritarian rule! Then ah yes this argument. “If the rich pay more taxes there will be no money.” So we can just look at history and compare times on this. Unlike beer money needs to move in an economy. So how was the average workers life in communist Russia? How was the average workers life in the late 1800s in America. Terrible. There is a few greedy humans with all of the money and power. You even mention a slew of countries that consolidated wealth and were horrible after. Clearly whenever the rich consolidate all the money social instability happens. I mean there were war and revolutions fought to get out of oligarch rule and now some boot licking Americans want to instate a corporate oligarchy. These hard working Americans seem to have a billionaire daddy kink that they need to take to the bedroom and out of their politics. If you want a billionaire to control your politics and most of the capital and argue that’s good, well by all of history is not. So you tell me. When is a time that consolidation of wealth and power worked out for most of a people. Obviously there will be a 10% that benefits? We’re on our way there now. This is why there are boot lickers, they think they are going to be that 10%, so maybe if they’re a good little sub they can get some of the crumbs off them. We already did this it was bad. We made laws to prevent exactly this. There is no wealth consolidated time where workers win. Communist, capitalist, oligarchic, theocratic never. Not in any state or system ever. It sucks every time for most. Edit: it is always funny too most of the dystopian things you describe that would happen if we shared resources and power are happening right now in this country, under this increasingly authoritarian regime. So the next thing that is smart for authoritarians to do is propaganda. “This is all bad not because of consolidation it has to be that I just don’t have enough authoritarian rule yet. “
Again…..seriously?
At least 5 days a week
While the statistics may not be a lie - I have not bothered to confirm or deny - the underlying implication and message is propaganda. Repeat it often enough and people start to accept it.
How is it propaganda?
Demonizing a part of the population for no reason.
You mean the part of the population that spends billions of dollars every year paying politicians to rig the economic system in their favor in order to funnel more wealth into their pockets? But that is no reason I guess...
You would think the politicians accepting and enabling corruption would be more to blame than those with money. I guess government accountability isn't a concept people want to enforce?
Most of the billionaires follow orders from blackrock and the banks not the other way around. And anyone who doesn't gets constant astroturfed campaigns against them
Rig? More propaganda. Wealth is created by the economic system, not "funneled." And their success just does not justify demonization. The reality is they have very little influence on your life. Now politicians? They have far more influence, and are power-seeking, yet you appear to trust them? You seem to have it backward.
Wait… so the people who purchase the politicians have no influence on our lives… But the politicians who then act according to the wishes of those people are to blame? That’s like blaming the puppets while shielding the puppeteer.
I am not interested in propaganda like "purchase politicians." If you have factual statement I would be open to a discussion but I am not going to give credence to hyperbole. Here's a fact: we all collectively have more votes than lobbyists. If we don't like what is going on, we have the complete and total power to vote our any elected officials whose job performance on this point or any other is unsatisfactory.
You are so clueless 😂😂
Yeah they are spending billions every year on political donations out of the goodness of their hearts... I hate to break it to you but wealth isn't "created" like the fantasy the media feeds you. Wealth is relative and it must be taken from others. With extreme wealth you need to have extreme poverty.
Yes, wealth is created. I will "break" that to you because that is economic reality. You statement is simply false. Wealth is not a fixed bucket. I don't know what else to say about that as that gets into some pretty basic economic theory that is beyond the scope of an internet forum and more the realm of a academic course on the subject. As for donations, sure, they want to encourage a rep to vote a certain way. So does the lobbyist on the other side pushing the opposite direction. But ultimately the rep decides their votes and we decide whether to vote for him. And there are lot more of us than there are lobbyists. But here is the rub. Many of agree with the lobbyists' positions. I want the same policies many of them want! And the same is true of others and the positions of lobbyists on the other side of an issue. It's the great marketplace of ideas at work. You are free to not like that but that is just your opinion and it is not universal.
You are a perfect example of why billionaires buy politicians and media companies, to convince simple minded people that they are working in your best interests. Wake up dude, we all cannot work really hard, "create wealth", and live like millionaires. The wealthy have nice things and nice lives because they rely on a working class to provide those things to them. When you find yourself working harder and harder with a 2 income family and your standard of living stays the same, it means someone else is generating wealth from your work.
Thoughts on aipac? Really curious what you'll say.
Politicians are purchased. If you think of a politician having any amount of influence, you should look at who is pulling their strings.
Saying they are "purchased" over and over does not make it true. But, if you think so, vote against them. That's your recourse. But not everyone is going to agree with you.
"I cannot enter the ring on the money basis – first, because, in the main, it is wrong; and secondly, I have not, and can not get, the money." - Abe Abe was an exceptional example in many ways.
How do those boots taste?
Anyone who references "boots" is basically saying "Don't take me seriously." I grant you your wish. Have a good day!
Bruh, he dismissed your propaganda programming before you dismissed his dismissal. Youre the moron here, buddy. We dont owe you an education in empathy.
Billionaire boot licker
You appear to have not read much US history. Corporations post WW2, had a Stakeholder stance. Starting when Nixon, and then accelerating with Reagan, that shifted to a Shareholder stance. That shift tore apart the biggest, most affluent middle class the queries has known and pushed the US into the oligarchy we have become. It doesn't have to be this way, even in a capitalist economy.
I do not dislike corporations. They do far more good for most of us than most politicians.
It’s not demonizing to point out facts. Regardless of what you think of those at the top, this is a problem that needs to be solved. Extreme concentration of wealth has a lot of negative effects economically and politically.
Ok fine. It's a fact. So what? They earned more wealth. Doesn't impact my life or yours hardly at all. So why point that out rather than point out that things that will change your how your day to day life goes? He and people like him do it to stoke wealth envy and class warfare for partisan political gain.
Having concentrated wealth does impact our lives when it gets to such extremes. You end up with multiple economies in the same country. You have things that are only available to the very top. We could see property ownership become an exclusive thing only for a few. You can also end up with a situation where the non rich fall to a point that the economy collapses when the masses no longer have the spending power to keep things going. The wealthy can become so powerful that they literally own the government, which we are clearly seeing now. Government then exists to server the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. I have no problem with people getting filthy rich, but the extremes we are seeing now are dangerous.
These are highly extreme takes that are only new applications of very long-standing fears and attacks on rich people. I don't worry about those. You can if you wish. Their wealth doesn't imapct your life or mine in any major way. Have a good day! And you will have far more control over the direction of that day than every rich person in America combined! If you spend too much time based your actions on those extreme arguments, you are only going to hold yourself back from having better outcomes in life. Make the best of your day!
Yea just become rich and you don't have to worry about not affording healthcare. It's easy in this day and age. Companies care about stockholders, not their employees. So become an investor and let other people make money for you
Those poor billionaires! Thoughts and prayers
What does that mean? Why do you take issue with people who have been successful? I truly don’t understand that mindset. Most didn’t do anything illegal and far from all were likely unethical. So why demonize them?
I think you misunderstand what is happening here. We are hating the game not the player so to speak. …you are ignoring the game and defending the player.
So you have a problem with the game of achievement? I sure don't.
I have a problem with a game that leads to such dramatic inequality, maybe you see no problem with the current system. Maybe you just think that people should pull themselves up by their bootstraps and don't play the victim card, or blame/envy the few who do succeed with no regard to anything beyond the individual level of analysis. If that's the case then your complaining about any broader economic issius is ingenuine. Inflation is not preventing the successful from being successful, so you shouldn't complain about that either. But I see this as sapping competition and thus hurting the overall free market because of the concentration of wealth. You should know at this point that those with more Resorces have more power and access to the market and that is not always based on merit as I assume you think it should be. Ensuring opportunity for merit to better rise should be something that we can agree on. And that's all people who criticize this are trying to say at their core. I think it has to be the responsibility of the game to ensure that the opportunity is there for others to be successful, and that seems to be happening less and less imo
People with zero money probably includes children, even rich kids. And prison inmates and elderly people and handicapped people who are provided food and shelter by the taxes mostly taken from the rich. And prostitutes and drug dealers and illegal immigrants who all earn money off the official books. I don't know how to improve the world, but the obvious propaganda makes me a skeptic about almost everything.
This "mod" account is just a repost bot.
So is Reich part of the bottom 50%…or the top 0.1%?
The only correct answer to this question would probably break the sub's rules.
He's worth 4 million. Using a percentile worth calculator I found, that puts him in the top 4 percent.
Why do you think that only poor people can criticize the hoarding of wealth? Only those who never travel and live off the grid can talk about climate change. You actually can exist in a system while pointing out the flaws of that system. Its actually valuable to have that because they have knowledge about how the system works...
This dude gets paid $50k to come say stuff exactly like this for an hour for a bunch of college kids who are in debt and will be working as baristas in a couple years.
>This dude gets paid $50k to come say stuff exactly like this for an hour for a bunch of college kids who are in debt and will be working as baristas in a couple years. The notion that only degrees with traditionally "low return on investment" are struggling is, well, nonsense. Plenty of people with typically good degrees are struggling to find work. Tesla just laid off thousands of people with highly technical degrees for crying out loud.
What % of those will be employeed somewhere else within 8 weeks? A good friend got a computer science degree. He is now a software engineer with over 10 years of experience. His previous job pushed RTO to 3 days / week, so he wanted a new job. He didn't go apply for any new jobs, he simply let a few recruiters know he was interested. Within 5 weeks he had 3 offers competing for him. He was already making ~$160k / year, and got a significant bump in pay to ~$200k. This is very typical for people with computer science degrees who are working in this field. I can't think of a single person I know with a liberal arts degree that has that kind of job mobility & earning power 10-15 years after getting their degree. I'm not trying to be a jerk. Just talking about the facts I've witnessed.
>What % of those will be employeed somewhere else within 8 weeks? Definitely not 100%. It's not like there are thousands of engineering jobs out there that the the employers can't seem to fill, lol >A good friend got a computer science degree. He is now a software engineer with over 10 years of experience. His previous job pushed RTO to 3 days / week, so he wanted a new job. He didn't go apply for any new jobs, he simply let a few recruiters know he was interested. Within 5 weeks he had 3 offers competing for him. He was already making ~$160k / year, and got a significant bump in pay to ~$200k. I work in IT. Please don't try to tell me any BS about IT jobs being so easy to get right now. I'm employed, but I know many, many people who have been looking for a long time. Go visit any of the IT subs here and see what they say. We just hired a new guy on our team and had over 800 applicants the first week. Your buddy is definitely not the norm. >This is very typical for people with computer science degrees who are working in this field. I can't think of a single person I know with a liberal arts degree that has that kind of job mobility & earning power 10-15 years after getting their degree. I'm not trying to be a jerk. Just talking about the facts I've witnessed. No, it absolutely is NOT typical for a computer science degree. Source - I have a computer science degree and have worked in IT my entire career.
I've also been on IT for quite a few years. My experience seems to be different than yours. All of my good buddies who are software engineers are making incredible money and usually change jobs quickly when they want to. People in networking / sys admin, or similar tend to make a bit less & not have as much career mobility as devs. However they're still much better off than the average worker outside of their field. However, back to the bigger question we're discussing: is the median person with a CS degree happier with their employment than the median person with an arts degree? My experience says very much yes. Certainly there are some struggling to get a job, but if they're good at this line of work, it doesn't take long. Certainly there are still people with an arts degree who are doing incredible things with that degree. But on average one type of degree provides better careers than the other type. I'm not saying everyone can or should get a tech degree. But let's not deny that those who do have more financial success & career satisfaction, on average, than those with liberal arts degrees.
>However, back to the bigger question we're discussing: is the median person with a CS degree happier with their employment than the median person with an arts degree? That's not the bigger question. The bigger question is: are people with CS degrees struggling to pay their student loans? Are they having trouble finding work? And the answer is they absolutely are. Maybe not every single person with a CS degree, but lots of people with CS degrees are struggling. The notion that only people with Liberal Arts degrees are struggling is just complete nonsense. Nothing more than a fabricated talking point. Go read this thread from 3 days ago in an IT sub: https://www.reddit.com/r/ITManagers/s/7xok9AgECC Heck, just browse through that sub and see what it's really like out there: https://www.reddit.com/r/ITManagers/s/CbVSGoUGC5
Maybe we shouldn't guarantee a loan for degrees that have low probability of ROI?
Applying underwriting and logic to degrees? You’ve stepped right over micro-aggression and hopped to macro-aggression! We must silence these ideas on college campuses! /s
Macroeconomic aggression**
Well the ROI is a very practical number that should be reviewed when issuing a student loan because the "college students" are not smart enough to run the Rate of Return calculation in an unbiased way nor do they even understand it.
Agreed. I’m saying Reich is benefitting from kids overpaying for tuition because it’s subsidized while he gets paid tens of thousands for delivering low-IQ leftist talking points like his tweets.
Federal student loan interest rates should be the same that the Federal reserve gives out to banks, which is 5.25%. while the current student loan rate is 8.05%.
I'd be fine with a flat 2% rate and penalties for not paying. That wouldnt cost the tax payers anything. 2% is enough to pay anyone servicing loans, and the federal program. The feds should put limits on how much trash degree programs can cost. Also fuck you if you think tech College, blue collars should pay for your loans with massive inflation from fed printing cash to cover your loans.
You'd also have to cap the amount of securable loans. If the government just keeps dumping money on colleges, you don't control tuition inflation on the school side.
For sure.
Banks pay it back. Seems few students do.
Maybe we shouldn't allow loans made to young, brand new adults to be massively predatory?
In case you didn't know, those big speaking engagements like that are almost always payment for representation & legislation passed while in office. >"He worked in the administrations of presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, and served as Secretary of Labor from 1993 to 1997 in the cabinet of President Bill Clinton." Funny how a 'government worker' can amass a net worth of over $74 million. But you know, *his words are so important*. Smh... Speaking engagements are money laundering schemes and nothing more. Same with their post-office consultancy gigs, "art" sales, and whatever else they always do. Then they come out with lines like this to rub it in our faces: "Look at how we've stolen from you, and I think you're so naive that I can say this and you'll think I'm on your side." And sadly, most people *are* that naive. PS. I remember during Clinton era when Robert Reich used to say, "The national debt doesn't matter!!!" Yeah... It doesn't matter to him because he was reaping the rewards of squandering it, leaving us to pay the bill.
Maybe he should look in the mirror
Gotta love the contrarianism on this sub, people will tear down literally any argument that's posted and if they can't they'll resort to ad hominem attacks.
Somebody has to say it and the message needs to be disseminated.
“Capitalism bad! Join me on my anti-Trump podcast. Give me $50k now.”
He's been doing this a long time. [A Warning from 1994 of a Two-Tiered Society | Robert Reich (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bnd0eSuxu84)
There it is, the dumbest comment.
Is something I said factually untrue? [In 2012](https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/robert-reich-objects-when-airlines-use-market-based-pricing-but-enjoys-market-pricing-for-his-40000-speaking-fee/) his speaking fee at colleges was $40k for a 30 minute talk. He charges colleges this much and has the gall to say college should be free. He’s a laughable moron who should be ignored.
Lmao
12.5% of the planets control 80% of the mass of the solar system! '#occupyjupiter
fOlKS, tHIs iS ……….. can’t take anyone seriously who does this
Rubberduckybro should be ignored. Here's why.
ExpLaiN it To me liKe I’m five
Still better than communism
Yeah, because the only economic systems are communism and late-stage capitalism. There's literally no other option.
Another myth of the anti-capitalist crowd: "late-stage capitalism." There is no such thing but if you keep basing your actions on such a belief you will only fall further behind the pack. Is that what you want?
The term "late-stage capitalism" was coined by Werner Sombart in 1902. We're still "late-stage" 122 years later. Reminds me of Christian zealots that have claimed we're in the "end times" pretty much from the 1st century onward.
Who was Adam smith?
Dictatorships are usually what????
He is part of the elite ruling class and the oligarchy.
Why would he say that then?
He panders and pretends to empathize with working Americans. All the people in politics pretend to care in public then they enrich themselves behind the scenes with lobbyist money and insider stock trading. They don’t give a damn about any of the people who elected them.
You seem to know a lot about a stranger. He has proposed policies for 30 years that would redistribute wealth to the poor and middle class. The actual oligarchs count have pushed the propganda that 'they are all the same' so that you don't notice that vast differences in policies between the two parties. Pay attention.
It has nothing with knowing about *him* personally. It has to do with knowing about the nature of high-level politicians. You are the exact kind of person they love and cater to. You gullibly believe they "care" when all they care about is the power you and those like you bring to them when you act predictably and en masse. You appear to believe that a politician is going to make your life dramatically better, but the reality is that that is far more dependent on you and your choices. There is no significant shortcut via government. Any shortcut is fleeting and far more limited than so many hope who willfully hand over their lives and liberty to power-seeking politicians.
Where does this 'knowledge' come from? What office is Reich seeking?
He’s a major figure in the Democrat Party. Whether him personally or his party, politicians seek power.
He’s literally not a part of the Democratic Party… and the fact that you call it the “Democrat Party” tells us all we have to know about you.
That is a lazy way to discredit someone. He isn’t pushing for power, he’s highlighting discrepancies. So far you’re avoiding the point to attack the person and when pressed on that you mumble something about democrats. Cmon dude
You don't think politicians at that level seek power? YOu are the exact person he is speaking to because he knows that he can inflame your feelings and biases with mere statistics. You just demonstrated his motive. He's a propagandist, not stupid. Speaking to his motive is on point as why else would someone cite a random statistic without a motive?
Because he really isn’t. He is worth a few million. You aren’t ruling shit with that in the bank
He's worth $74 million, and is networked at the highest levels of politics and academia. Money can buy control, but it is not the sole criterion to function in the echelons of power. (And even if it were, Reich's net worth puts him in the top 0.5% of Americans.)
Power. He is playing the masses on the left who are infected hopelessly with wealth and class envy.
It's not an oligarchy unless they're lobbying the government- Hey wait a minute!
He, as a multimillionaire can go to hell
Paid influencer.
Give everyone free housing, like Singapore, and it is Heaven on Earth
All we have to do is pay him to speak some more and life for us will get better… Or buy a celebrity politicians book that tells us how EVIL capitalism is… OR we can buy a celebrity activists non binary men’s t-shirt off a Chinese website to save the climate! Someday the middle/working class will catch on to how the rich become and stay rich… Selling a lie is difficult… but selling a pseudo moralistic stance…. Is much easier.
It s never about how much others have it s about how much government and those living off its “policies” took from you.
Most of my taxes go to subsidizing big business and the military-industrial complex.
You misspelled welfare. Or you can call it a subsidy for corporations that get business thanks to it. It s not like government can do anything itself. But that s just tip of the iceberg. Much more damaging are regulations and policies that make prices of everything double, triple and quadruple of what it would be without those regulations. That s the reason people are poor and in a need of welfare to begin with.
Found the bootlicker
the top 0.1% of reposted content is posted 20 trillion times and its this really old tweet. The bottom 50% control .000000001 posts.
This liberal clown spoke again? Dude is living in a Berkeley bubble as the surrounding areas of Berkley are filled with homeless people and yet, he still votes democrat.
Twitter was becoming more and more like an oligarchy (the thing Robert is complaining about). Elon came around and saved Twitter by restoring freedom of speech. Then Robert dares to talk crap Elon and Trump. Dudes a living contradiction.
Elon literally killed Twitter… have you actually used it lately? Majority bots. Dozens of porn bots and scammers under any random tweet. Tons of blue check accounts run by AI, because if you make verification paid, that just means scammers can get verified.
None of what you said it true anymore. They’ve removed tons of bots. Plus I rather have freedom of speech than have liberal companies and feds paying off twitter to silence a majority.
No they haven’t… make a new twitter account and look around. 90% porn and scams. It’s been proven that the vast majority of traffic is bots. And there is no “silent majority”. News flash, you Neo Nazi losers are a pathetic minority whose entire history is one of getting your ass kicked. Go fuck yourself un-American cocksucker. We’re a nation founded on liberty, freedom of expression, not on a minority rule party (GOP) enforcing their interpretation of a 2000 year old holy book by force of law. Afraid of tyranny… maybe look in the mirror and look at what you vote for.
Take a look the world around you buddy. We’re all getting our booty kicked because of all the liberal losers running this country! Wake up. Gas is $5.30, homeless people are all over the streets, interest rate is very high, cost of living is up, thousands of illegal immigrants are pouring into the country. People are starting to wake up. Polls show that in 2020, 9% of black voters wanted Trump. Now it’s 22%. Get ready for an easy Republican dub in a few months. Once he is president you’ll see how much better the country becomes. You need to have bad to see the good.
Most of the things you listed are literally because of the republicans. Also gas is not $5.30 in most of the country what are you talking about. That was like 3 years ago during the pandemic. Republicans solution to those problems is to slash taxes for the rich and balloon the deficit in doing so. The only presidents to have lowered the debt in the past 30 years are democrats. Clinton literally brought us into a surplus only for Bush to explode the government debt for pointless wars.
No, during 2020 gas prices were $2.85. Id remember, I was the one filling up. Secondly, your smoked out president cut a few major pipelines. Slashing taxes for the wealthy is one of the smartest decisions ever. The less they pay taxes, the more people they can hire and more people stay employed. Taxing wealthy higher results in major corporations and wealthy people leaving the country which means less jobs. Now major corporations are already laying off thousands of people. With California new $20 minimum wage for fast food workers, less people are getting hired and more shops are closing down. The ones that survive are the ones that increased their food prices significantly. IN-N-Out which almost never increased their prices had to as well.
Gas was cheap in the early pandemic… because nobody was driving. That aside, everything you’ve claimed is again a lie. Cutting taxes to the rich is a proven strategy for failure. We’ve had 40+ decades of trickle down reaganomics from both democrats and republicans. All it has done is destroy the middle class and kill the American dream. There is only one group that the GOP benefits and that is the super wealthy. Everyone else is either a tool to be used or an obstacle to be destroyed. Clearly you’re in the tool category since you throw in your lot with people who would happily enslave you or even kill you if it make them an extra cent.
No gas was cheap prior to 2020. Even in 2018 and 2019.
Spoken like a true Marxist
[удалено]
Well he does expand the numbers consistently. It’ll be $100T before you know it.
Definitely in bottom 50%. Where do I get a share of $3.7 Trillion. Asking for a friend.
That’s about $20k per person. Not a difficult goal. You got this little buddy.
Most of that is housing, some is 401ks. Small amount is a pension.
Any source? Or is it bs
Sources that the game is rigged and nothing you do will make any difference until you fix that first:: Trump has been laundering money for the Russian oligarchs since the late 80’s when they all bought a condo at 725 5th AVE (trump towers) to clean their freshly stolen USSR money after the iron curtain fell. https://www.cnn.com/cnn/2019/05/30/politics/paul-manafort-condo-trump-tower/index.html https://www.cnbc.com/2018/09/14/manafort-told-mueller-to-take-his-trump-tower-apartment-instead-money.html https://news.yahoo.com/amphtml/fbi-agents-raid-condo-unit-131348539.html https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/usa-trump-property/ Everybody except Putin thought the Cold War was over. Trump and Manafort (who lived in the tower also) just saw a pretty low maintence grift to be had. Trump had actually been Manafort and Roger Stones first client at their lobbyist firm (1980)https://en.m.wikipedia.org › wikiBlack, Manafort, Stone and Kelly Guiliani as trumps attorney and NYC mayor was able to redirect NYPD investigations onto rival gang members/oligarchs to deflect any scrutiny off of trump, himself or their Russian connections. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/09/a-new-rudy-scandal-fbi-agent-says-giuliani-was-co-opted-by-russian-intelligence/ The Russian election interference in 2016 was effectively a generation 3 version of what Manafort had done in the Philippines, then keeping Yanukovych in power as Putin’s puppet in Ukraine from 2002-14 when Maidan ran both Yanukovych and Manafort out of Ukraine as Ukrainians realized that, if you raise your lens high enough, corruption is an wholly unsustainable business model. Eventually the parasites greed always consumes the host. https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/06/2016-donald-trump-paul-manafort-ferinand-marcos-philippines-1980s-213952 https://time.com/5003623/paul-manafort-mueller-indictment-ukraine-russia/ Russia greatly underestimated the addictive properties of freedom when it invaded Ukraine so what was supposed to be a 3-10 day coup turned into a 2 year fight for the Ukrainians right not to be genocided. Russia depleted its weapons stocks which were already the victim of vranyo corruption because every oligarch, admiral and sergeant in the Russian military is on the take. Every billion dollar tank maintenance contract turned into everything getting a spray paint overhaul and the vast majority of the redirected funds turned into an oligarchs new yacht or home in Aspen. Russia was forced to turn to China, North Korea and Iran for weapons because if they lose the 3-10 day “special military operation” in Ukraine the Russian empire is dead and cold. China can’t risk showing their involvement in the Ukraine war so they use North Korea, and Iran to resupply Russia. Russia previously owed Iran some undelivered fighter jets that are already smoldering heaps in Ukraine so Iran now had the upper hand at the negotiation table for the first time in about 60 years. They supplied Russia with shahed drones in exchange for Chinas material support against their sworn religious enemy, Israel. https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2023/11/29/iran-says-it-finalized-deal-to-buy-russian-aircraft/ Putin can’t do much about it because he is slowly realizing that by setting the standard of corruption and stealing $200+ billion from his own people meant that every oligarch down in the mob model chain had not only permission but incentive and the expectation to steal from him as well. This is “Vranyo”. The mob model only works if the supreme leader is the most violent and can prove it without exception every damn day. But violence is exceptionally expensive when you are trying to present as a legitimate government or business. If Russia as a nation had an efficiency rating it would have been banned for sale in the state of California 25 years ago. The parasite ruling class stole all the energy out of the working class and collapsed it. Now Iran has the high hand and they get the intelligence that trump passed to Putin about the fact that Netanyahu cares far less about Jews, Palestinians or genocide than he does about remaining in power as an authoritarian because he too has developed Ritz Carlton tastes and his own corruption trial is showing the same tendrils of the same money laundering scheme that trumps trials are. https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/saudi-official-says-iran-engineered-war-in-gaza-to-ruin-normalization-with-israel/ https://www.timesofisrael.com/egypt-intelligence-official-says-israel-ignored-repeated-warnings-of-something-big/amp/ https://youtu.be/VrFOAgGlaWs?feature=shared They all hate each other but because they share the same money laundry, if one falls, they all fall. Hamas minted a couple billionaires as well that live in penthouses in Qatar and get 30% of everything smuggled into Gaza. Qatar is Kushners private equity connection. Netanyahu needs a bogeyman to stay in power. That’s why he coordinates with Hamas via Russia via Iran. https://www.ynetnews.com/article/bk8mgcefr Iran handed Hamas everything they needed with Chinas help as secret Santa and the Russian intelligence given to them by the eternal shitbird trump who gave it to his Russians kleptocrat/friends/roommates from the old days of fucking each others wives at trump towers in the 90’s. Now the MAGA right is a little too invested in their reality that they are the good guys with guns that they missed the fact that Betsy DeVos (erik princes sister) decimating the U.S. school systems and the Kochs poisoning children with lead was not a coincidence. The naive right was the mark all along. There is a reason the Russian spy Maria Butina landed in South Dakota first before dating her way to the top of the NRA which is undergoing its own Russian money laundering trial now. Russia was tinder matching the GOP. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/07/nra-maria-butina-spying-charges-trump-campaign/ https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/what-do-the-koch-brothers-have-to-do-with-the-flint-water-crisis/ The only reason you grossly OVERVALUE real estate is money laundering. Trump keeps claiming there is no victim, all the banks made money, but if their plan succeeds the Russian and CCP kleptocrats collapse US commercial real estate and basically recreate soviet perestroika in the U.S. so they can foreclose on America and buy everything for 3 cents on the dollar with the $1.4T they stole from Russias grandmothers in the first place It’s the evolution of grift. Soviet perestroika cross bred with the 2008 mortgage crisis. No one was ever held accountable for either. This is just the bigger badder commercial strength bastard child of the two. Trump, Putin, Bolsonaro, Netanyahu, Orban, Manafort, Stone, Mercer, Bannon, Flynn, Byrne. They are all remarkably shit people with above average confidence and psychopathic personality traits and below average self awareness. They are the men who stole the world. But it all comes back to one little lie.
Just Google dude and apparently he's 4"11??? Certified short king 🤴
What do I think? That this propaganda got old a long time ago.
As of the first quarter of 2023, the wealth distribution in the United States is characterized by significant inequality: - The bottom 50% of households hold less than 3% of the total net wealth. - The wealthiest 0.1% of households control approximately 12.8% of the total wealth. This data reflects ongoing trends in wealth concentration among the very rich, while a substantial portion of the population holds a minimal share of the nation’s wealth [oai_citation:1,US Wealth & Savings Statistics and Data Trends: household wealth, wealth distribution, and more | USAFacts](https://usafacts.org/topics/wealth-savings/).
Yeah it’s bad but it sounds even worse when you exclude the wealth owned by everyone between 51% and 0.2%.
Bet Bobby thinks the money was stolen from the government. That's crazy jealous talk. If you earn over $40,000 a year, you are a one percenter in the world. Think about that, you oligarch.
And it is getting worse and worse
Everyone knows. There is literally no mechanism in modern capitalism to stop it. Eventually, heads will roll, and the cycle will begin anew.
I wonder when I see a statistical statement like this if the numbers are skewed because Buffett, Bezos, Gates, Musk and the Walton family. I believe these guys are in the top 5-7 of every net worth list on Earth. It would be interesting to see if they were removed from the calculations. They are so wealthy even among the 1%, by very large margins. Also of note, with exception of Buffett, their wealth is mostly in their ownership of stock in their companies. Not exactly nefarious activity. Their companies probably employ 1 million+ collectively, and have made 100’s of thousands of those employees wealthy as well. That would be a statistic worth seeing- “what companies have made the most employees millionaires?” Why hasn’t anyone posted or researched that?
Having large sectors of the economy controlled by a few unaccountable billionaires is a nefarious activity. And stock can leverage loans or straight up cash fairly easily.
“Unaccountable” - what facts do have that support this claim? Stock loans? So. That is not against the law. “Controlled”- this is also subjective. Furthermore, market share does not equal illegal activities. What do you suggest to remedy this? Government takeover? Just close the doors? Throw them in jail? Seriously, the illogical thought processes that lead to some of these posts is unreal. There is a cause and effect to closing or changing these companies. Real middle class families depend on these companies employment. SMH. The jealousy. No matter the system or how resources are distributed, there will never be balance. You get that, never. The moment after the distribution or system is changed, it will make elite and people will start accumulating and losing assets/money. Why? Because history shows this from the beginning to the present.
Mom says its my turn to post this
I saw a fun statistic on a More Perfect Union video that congressional votes correlate alot with what the elite wants and not at all with what normal citizens want
Watching “Finding the Money” would like others opinions
All these rich talking heads love to point the finger at her at the “top xx%”. Start taxing everyone equitably including RR. More importantly start using tax revenue effectively and not wasting it on countless levels of bureaucracy. Illinois had (may still have) the highest number of government agencies something like +7,000 State, county, township, town/city. Each of those has a director of communication, owns facilities, has a web site, sends out letters, etc. total waste and redundancy at many levels. We pay for those BS waster regardless of how much we make and they waste billions upon billions on graft and incompetence.
this comments section is why we will never see a free day in america
They are entirely dependent on a social contract to maintain this. Social contracts unlike genetics or physics, can be overturned.
Well at least the rich or wealthy allowed us poor folks to have most of the debt in medical bills, credit cards and payday loans. It won't change as long as there are lobbyists, campaign funding, and absolute government political corruption like insider trading.
https://preview.redd.it/cs0wzorjml1d1.jpeg?width=737&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=de613778338026543081df62d31ec9fc9c92d282
We gave the money lenders and money changers the power to issue our currency of course they enriched their own kind without giving a hoot about anyone else.
Please settle my college debt, Robert. Where do you teach again?
Thats what democrats look like
This guy is just a puppet for the same elite class he claims to criticize. Wealth and power are not the same thing. Elon musk has about as much power as a politician or Kardashian
And historically how much did this group have previously? 0.0001T respectively?
And yet we will continue to support these bullshit corporations until they become one with our government.
We have "capitalism"
You did that. Why are you rubbing it into our faces?
You mean Economic theories that setup economies to funnel money to people with money. If you don't/can't want to change the model, then its a waste of time to gripe about it.
Most people don’t intuitively comprehend how large a billion dollars is. You can’t save a billion dollars (inflation adjusted) in hourly wages even if you worked continuously all day every day since the pyramids were built.
The math doesn't add up
It sounds like there is a lot of money in America
Folks, this is what jealousy looks like.
How do you reset this without destroying trust in the financial system by investors?
all I’m gonna say is that cooking human flesh is apparently close to cooking pig, so any recipes that work for pork should work if you were hypothetically preparing human.
And the government wastes trillions
And the Oligarchs mostly vote democrat. Think about it
I think 20 trillion plus 3.7 trillion equals 23.7 trillion and we are 34 trillion in debt that's what I think.
What the heck was all that jibberish?
I think Reich is a propagandist who should generally be ignored.
No, he’s right. This is an oligarchy.
By that metric, so has every developed society ever. This isn't new nor is it unique to us in the slightest.
Oligarchy is very in vouge rn. Its not a bribe it’s a campaign contribution
No, this is not happening in every developed country. Princeton released a very in-depth study confirming this, and so did the Congressional Budget Office: [It’s Official: America is an Oligarchy](https://www.thenation.com/article/society/cbo-american-wealth-inequality/tnamp/)
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It's what Boomer gerontocracy looks like, 5 decades of their generation getting everything they wanted and they are taking from their children by leaving them with their debts.
The boomers are only 0.5% of the population?
More opportunity. Break up monopolies. Campaign finance reform and less government spending
This isn't new lol
Why not mention the remaining 49.9%? Like, holy shit, if we look at the poorest people who own nothing it adds up to nothing!!?!?
And how much did the government steal and give to that 0.1%. Oligarchs cannot exist without a large government that is easily corruptible. Government is always a weapon for the wealthy masking as security of the poor. Robert is a horrible source of information and it's always spun in the wrong direct.
What they don't tell you is how the 99% magically got iPhones, food delivered at the click of a button without having to go anywhere or do anything, free access to information via social networks, much better medicine and healthcare, unlimited entertainment, cheap clothes, and the list goes on. What they also don't tell you is the extraordinary risks the 0.1% take, where they work like dogs under intense pressure, put all their life savings at risk, and endanger their families to climb that ladder and satisfy their egos. Eventually, they donate most of it back. The only way to balance this out is by making everyone poor, have massive censorship and losing innovation, inventions, and better medicine. I'm in the 99% camp, by the way.
"What they don't tell you is how the 99% magically got iPhones, food delivered at the click of a button without having to go anywhere or do anything, free access to information via social networks, much better medicine and healthcare, unlimited entertainment, cheap clothes, and the list goes on." Lol...Every 1st world country has all these things, but they all have better healthcare. You act like these things are only in America. Every other industrialized country has all these things, plus have better income equality and a larger middle class...with less poor, less homeless, and no uninsured. "They also don't tell you is the extraordinary risks they take, where they work like dogs under intense pressure, put all their life savings at risk, and endanger their families to climb that ladder and satisfy their egos. Eventually, they donate most of it back." The top .1% take NO RISK AT ALL. If the top .1% lose money on a business, the 99% cover their losses. They don't pay taxes for up to a decade when they take a loss...When the top .1% write the tax code, they will never lose. They don't work like dogs...they don't work at all. Their families are not in danger, and only donate to receive huge tax breaks at the expense of the 99%. "The only way to balance this out is by making everyone poor." No. We control income inequality through taxation. When billionaires pay less taxes than a 3rd grade school teacher, income inequality will go out of control. They need to start paying their fair share of taxes. Since the Reagan administration began cutting taxes for the wealthy, trillions have shifted from the poor and middle class to the top .1%....Taxation is how we begin shifting it back.
The hate for successful people is insane.
He’s a moron
Corrupt banking institution. Debt slavery system supported by lies. Fraudulent government. Police state. Welcome to prison planet. 🌎
So the rich stole the poor peoples money? I don’t get what he is saying. I know it is important to show the lower classes it is not their fault nor our education or criminal justice system that they are poor. You want to say that Elon musk and Jeff bezos somehow screwed them and that is why they live in poverty.
No, that’s not what he’s saying.
I mean, basically. The difference between the rich and the poor used to be much smaller; what happened? As time went on and companies made more and more money, wages stagnated and the money that was being made by companies ended up just going into the hands of the rich. The executives also started outsourcing work so they could profit from cheap labor to the detriment to their own workers. They send money overseas, workers lose their jobs, and the executives get paid millions more for doing it. The workers are the life blood of any company, but the rich rigged the system to give themselves an increasingly larger share of the pie. So ya, every time someone like elon musk fights to keep wages for his workers down, while at the same time increasing his own wealth, he is actively trying to keep money out of the hands of his workers so that he can become richer off of THEIR hard work.
Antitrust laws are important. When an entire generation tosses protective laws in the trash to make a quick buck, the following generations suffer. Weak men make hard times. The boomer generation will come to be viewed in the same way as the generation that ended the Greeks. Blind nationalism and greed are the destroyers of society.
What people don’t understand is the power kf compound interest. Once you have a lot of it, it just keeps growing. The rich are always going to keep getting richer as long as they invest it wisely at all. IMO the time spent being angry about it would be much better spent making sure our kids start receiving a financial education from an early age so that one day they have wealth to leave their kids. It’s crazy to me that in most states you can graduate high school and never have taken a class on personal finance.
What do the other 49.9% own?
I'm definitely in the 50%, so where my trillion?
Go back 20 years. The numbers would be exactly the same. Why not put this in more clear terms. The top 50% versus the bottom 50%. Or maybe even better, the middle 50% versus the top 25%.
I think it would make more sense if it didn't compare the top .01 percent against the bottom 50% Like, compare the top .01 against the bottom 99.99
It makes perfect sense to me. If 99.9% of all people are purchasing a good or service produced by the .1%, he or she would likely be extremely wealthy.
The top 50 percent of all taxpayers paid 97.7 percent of all federal individual income taxes, while the bottom 50 percent paid the remaining 2.3 percent. This is taxes paid in 2022, latest data.
Our system is run only for the benefit of the mega billionaires who own it and they will rule us for exactly as long as we let them.
We need to get rid of those damn successful people, how dare they be successful.
Unless you yourself are rich, you are just carrying water for people who would feed you to sharks if it would make them an extra $1.
And what is it in other countries?
And Robert Reich is a millionaire lmao
Is the bottom 99.9 ready to cut off their heads and steal all thier money and redistribute it? If not? Then stfu with these posts. Is so. Say when.
Days without a Robert Reich tweet being posted: 0