speaking of philanthropy . . . https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2021/12/harris-in-paris-under-her-skin.php POSTED ON DECEMBER 14, 2021 BY SCOTT JOHNSON IN KAMALA HARRIS, LAUGHTER IS THE BEST MEDICINE, MEDIA HARRIS IN PARIS: UNDER HER SKIN The Washington Free Beacon took an offbeat look at Kamala Harris’s trip to Paris last month, reporting that Harris had “dropped nearly $400 for a single pot at a boutique shop in Paris[.]” The Free Beacon’s Adam Kredo and Brent Scher broke the story tongue in cheek, concluding: “The money Harris dropped at E. Dehillerin could have been used to buy at least 25 16-pound turkeys for families in need, according to a Free Beacon cost analysis.” It apparently doesn’t take much to get under Harris’s skin. Harris complained about the Free Beacon story in an interview with her hometown newspaper, where the going is easy (on her, at least). Andrew Stiles capably continues the mockery in “She Persisted: Kamala Harris Won’t Be Distracted by Free Beacon Kitchenware Bombshell.” Subhead: “VP slams ‘ridiculous’ investigation into Parisian pot scandal.” Stiles quotes Harris: “Oh, how about, ‘She’s going to buy a pot on her way to the airport,'” Harris huffed, “after a very significant and highly successful bilateral meeting in France on issues that are about national security, on issues that are about climate, on issues that are about what we are doing in terms of international norms and rules on everything from cyber to space. Come on.” Harris’s pain has to be the feel-good story of the day. I had no idea this controversy was raging
If you don’t support some version of a wealth limit, whether you realize it or not your cool with an eventual single world dictator. Capitalism is a game that will be won if left to if left to it’s own demise. Turns out the people who are really good at accumulating money are really good at accumulating money. Unlike back in the day when people would surround a castle and whoop some ass, things aren’t so simple with nuclear energy, AI being controlled by people who have space ships. How far will the “they deserve it” mindset go exactly? We created this society / governance systems to serve the people’s interest, not to create a fair unfettered game of money collecting for a handful of people to get world dominating through. Idk, pencil me in as a guy who prefers the tyranny of many over the tyranny of the few.
to be charitable to stupidmoniker (on this point only), I took him to be making the general point that if all Democratic voters for Biden donated on average $1,380, the same result could be calculated as asking Musk to do it alone. Obviously George Clooney, Steven Spielberg, and others would give at a somewhat higher dollar amount; you and I could probably (easily) swing $1380, whereas people farther down on the economic scale would donate zero--their share would be covered by Clooney Spielberg et al. I thought that point was interesting compared to OP's proposal.
This a WAY over simplification of the problem. I can understand why you can reach this conclusion but it just isn't consistent with a lot of the facts surrounding the homeless and functionally homeless. There are a lot of homeless that live in their cars and parks that still are employed or are "new homeless" and there are also families and they all would be greatly helped with additional housing available for them.... in fact many homeless only become drug addicts after long periods of homelessness. While there are a lot of mental health issues in the homeless community, the medical community actually does a great job getting them available medication. I agree that some homeless need to be rehabilitated, but I would say over half of them don't, you don't even realize they are homeless.
If that is the case, then I have less of an issue with it.... while there are many charitable rich democrats, there is also this "odd" situation where democrats are "woke" or generous until it impacts THEIR life negatively, and then it is a different story.
People complain about how cheap Tilman is But want every billionaire to be as cheap and broke as him @Os Trigonum @J.R. @Nook I’m all for people making as much money as they can Life is expensive
Well that's what I was talking about to begin with. By the way, do you approve of these billions in tax breaks?
If this were a better medium and I was a younger, I could write in detail how it's not as simple as that. I mentioned pension (or retirement) funds because they've likely caused more havoc to our society despite public acceptance that they guarantee elderly retirement. We live in a specialized society. If you're uniquely talented at basketball, you get rewarded for it. Real Estate or Sales reps can earn as much or more as doctors. The purpose of these funds are to guarantee yield at all costs. Up until recently, most didn't care how they got that return. That means when you hear a corporation like Rubbermaid cut costs with subpar products and white labeled Chinese imports, it's not necessarily because the CEO wanted to get a larger annual bonus, it's because their shareholders didn't like the "relative growth" compared to its competitors and they threatened to pull out of the stock. You might think this is the manifestation of greed, except shareholding (on the surface) is a direct representation of the company's owners. Everyone who owns the company has a voice and vote. Pension funds skew this because they can manage upwards of tens of billions of dollars in assets and all they care about is the max amount of yearly return possible. Your ten shares of voting power will be dwarfed by their ten million. A founder/CEO could potentially be outcompeted by funds banding together and forcing a short term decision. They don't care about Made N Murca. They don't care about worker rights. Blue, Red, Purple...**** them, pay us now. Is that the "tyranny of the few"? Not necessarily because those whales represent tens of millions of workers hoping to have some golden parachute in 10-25 years. They don't know how to pick stocks or use compound interest to their favor so they chose the Daryl Morry of investing and went to sleep without ever needing to think about it again for a few decades. In any case, Elon technically isn't a founder. Despite the stories of him "bankrolling the company on the throws of bankruptcy", he mostly came to those shares from agreed upon benchmarks signed between him and the board. I don't know if taking those shares from Elon to liquidate into homes-full-o-homeless is desired...why not just eliminate the middleman and just take over the all shares themselves? This is just one fragment of how specialization enables progress in civilization but compounds complexity in unseen ways. If you want to go the deep end, there are plenty of slow burning Adam Curtis documentaries on BBC each with their own rabbit holes.
Depends on whether or not the tax breaks to lure a company to a state is more profitable than not. Companies that create thousands of jobs with thousands of employees who all pay taxes and contribute to the economy may very well be paying more in taxes than had they not moved to that state.
On the contrary, giving housing to the homeless works https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...lved-chronic-homelessness-and-saved-millions/ T
And now... the rest of the story https://www.sltrib.com/news/politics/2020/05/11/utah-was-once-lauded/
That's fair enough. My late night post was triggered mostly by the sheer idiocy some posters display here day after day after day, hour after hour, and not your own. I want to add for the record, however, that there are many people now living on the streets, or that have for a time, that aren't simply lazy bums that need to get a job or get off drugs.
I agree with your points —, that’s why I said I couldn’t generalize. I don’t think there’s an east answer was my take home point wording was a bit off
You should quit debating because I agree that if the tax breaks don't turn a profit then it's a bad deal for the community.
