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Luxurious opulence and greed grabs 434 billion dollars like a never-ending sucking black hole

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
American billionaires richer by $434 billion during the pandemic | greatandhra

Likes a siphoning from a gas tank, the suction will never ever stop until it all runs completely bone dry.

At this ongoing rate, I'd wager most people will get to that magic day where they'll have no more money left to be sucked up and the wealth machine can stop feeding and cannibalizing the country to death.

I'm pro-capitalist, but not to this extent that it has gone. These people are going to make economic recovery almost impossible.

Am I being extreme with this assessment?
 

Lyndon

"Peace is the answer" quote: GOD, 2014
Premium Member
Don't you shamelessly support the party that's making it all possible?? And didn't you vote to put the swamp monster in charge of the country!!
 

sun rise

The world is on fire
Premium Member
American billionaires richer by $434 billion during the pandemic | greatandhra

Likes a siphoning from a gas tank, the suction will never ever stop until it all runs completely bone dry.

At this ongoing rate, I'd wager most people will get to that magic day where they'll have no more money left to be sucked up and the wealth machine can stop feeding and cannibalizing the country to death.

I'm pro-capitalist, but not to this extent that it has gone. These people are going to make economic recovery almost impossible.

Am I being extreme with this assessment?
Not in my book. I'd love to have, say, $10 million in the bank, but beyond that? I can't conceive of anything I'd like to own that would cost $1 billion.

I'm pro small business. My wife ran a small business with a few employees. My father had a small business. I worked for a couple of small corporations during my work years. And I certainly don't think everyone must be paid exactly the same amount.

But wealth at that scale? That level of inequality can't last. Sooner or later, there will be a reaction.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Don't you shamelessly support the party that's making it all possible?? And didn't you vote to put the swamp monster in charge of the country!!
The left does the same exact thing. The right is just more open about it.
 

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
The left does the same exact thing. The right is just more open about it.

From the article you linked:

"Decades of tax cuts for the rich have fueled the growth of billionaires and their wealth."

Now, it's true that the left, particularly the centrist left, had occasionally acquiesced to lowered taxes for the rich. But it's not even a question which party generally favors such policies, and which party wants more progressive taxes.

So why support the GOP when their policies stand opposed to your values? Are there other GOP policies that outweigh this one that win you over? Surely it's not on gay rights or abortion? So what is it?
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Be careful, or you might become one of those "socialists" that you despise so much.
Not on your life. =Op

But I'm also not supporting unchecked rampant greed either.

Extremes no matter where it comes from should be called out.

Let's face it, the wealthy elites are completely out of control to the point now where I think they will really and actually run society into the ground by sucking everything and anything completely dry with extreme prejudice.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
From the article you linked:

"Decades of tax cuts for the rich have fueled the growth of billionaires and their wealth."

Now, it's true that the left, particularly the centrist left, had occasionally acquiesced to lowered taxes for the rich. But it's not even a question which party generally favors such policies, and which party wants more progressive taxes.

So why support the GOP when their policies stand opposed to your values? Are there other GOP policies that outweigh this one that win you over? Surely it's not on gay rights or abortion? So what is it?
Actually I would be left like all of you if it wasn't for one thing, the extreme corruption and the continued violations of personal and economic freedoms that people have enjoyed in the past. I absolutely hate and despise the nanny state.

Get that aspect out of the way, and I'll be happy to be a part of the left.
 

Saint Frankenstein

Wanderer From Afar
Premium Member
American billionaires richer by $434 billion during the pandemic | greatandhra

Likes a siphoning from a gas tank, the suction will never ever stop until it all runs completely bone dry.

At this ongoing rate, I'd wager most people will get to that magic day where they'll have no more money left to be sucked up and the wealth machine can stop feeding and cannibalizing the country to death.

I'm pro-capitalist, but not to this extent that it has gone. These people are going to make economic recovery almost impossible.

Am I being extreme with this assessment?
Which goes to show that the idea that people who want the country to reopen are pawns being used by the rich who want to make money again is total bs. The rich are loving this shutdown because it benefits only the biggest corporations. The people being hurt by it are middle class and working class people who lost their jobs, and small local businesses who are forced to close and then go out of business while big box stores are deemed "essential". So it's really the people wanting this lockdown to go on forever who are the pawns of the rich.
 

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
Actually I would be left like all of you if it wasn't for one thing, the extreme corruption and the continued violations of personal and economic freedoms that people have enjoyed in the past. I absolutely hate and despise the nanny state.

Get that aspect out of the way, and I'll be happy to be a part of the left.

Can you give me an example of the nanny state?
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Not in my book. I'd love to have, say, $10 million in the bank, but beyond that? I can't conceive of anything I'd like to own that would cost $1 billion.

I'm pro small business. My wife ran a small business with a few employees. My father had a small business. I worked for a couple of small corporations during my work years. And I certainly don't think everyone must be paid exactly the same amount.

But wealth at that scale? That level of inequality can't last. Sooner or later, there will be a reaction.
Honest question I could ask of anybody, is what in the world justifies making such obscene amounts that a person's personal gain can dwarf entire national state and city budgets?

Personally I think it's already too late now, and this is going to be our collective downfall. The path of destruction will continue long after I'm dead and the wealthy, once bleeding everything dry, will move on to greener pastures elsewhere in the world to do the same thing to others all over again like a parasite does it with its host
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
Can you give me an example of the nanny state?
There's too many the count but I will say it's primarily compulsory based legislation instead of incentive-based legislations for the control of peoples personal and economic habits when it comes to the matter of choices and preferences.

The most notable being the plastic bag ban, smoking habits, helmet laws, seat belt laws, and dictating what a person can and cannot do with their own personal property. Primarily in the name of safety and security. Hence the term Nanny.

These are just examples, and I'm not going to argue any points specifically as it will make this thread go off topic prematurely coupled with the fact that there are already enough threads that have been out over that already.
 

Left Coast

This Is Water
Staff member
Premium Member
There's too many the count but I will say it's primarily compulsory based legislation instead of incentive-based legislations for the control of peoples personal and economic habits when it comes to the matter of choices and preferences.

The most notable being the plastic bag ban, smoking habits, helmet laws, seat belt laws, and dictating what a person can and cannot do with their own personal property. Primarily in the name of safety and security. Hence the term Nanny.

These are just examples, and I'm not going to argue any points specifically as it will make this thread go off topic prematurely coupled with the fact that there are already enough threads that have been out over that already.

Ok no problem, I don't mean to derail.
 

Father Heathen

Veteran Member
Not on your life. =Op

But I'm also not supporting unchecked rampant greed either.

Extremes no matter where it comes from should be called out.

Let's face it, the wealthy elites are completely out of control to the point now where I think they will really and actually run society into the ground by sucking everything and anything completely dry with extreme prejudice.
The thing is, a lot of what you've labelled "socialist" in the pass was neither extreme nor socialist. :shrug:

You should look into how the privatized healthcare, insurance, and pharmaceutical industries are predatory rackets that drive people either into dept or into the grave.

 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
Actually I would be left like all of you if it wasn't for one thing, the extreme corruption and the continued violations of personal and economic freedoms that people have enjoyed in the past. I absolutely hate and despise the nanny state.

Get that aspect out of the way, and I'll be happy to be a part of the left.

I don't want to get into a debate. Debates are like Shakespeare's 'fool' -- "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". I just want to understand. Do you think it's possible that a group of elites owning two-thirds of the world's wealth might poise a graver threat to human liberty and freedoms than a bunch of nanny-state types out to abolish plastic bags, etc?
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
The thing is, a lot of what you've labelled "socialist" in the pass was neither extreme nor socialist. :shrug:

You should look into how the privatized healthcare, insurance, and pharmaceutical industries are predatory rackets that drive people either into dept or into the grave.

If you had noticed, I haven't mentioned the word socialist lately. I think I'm finally getting tired of both parties going at the same thing for decades. Same old promises, same old speil, rehashed and regurgitated election after election after election.

I'm starting to recognize that we are now in an era of ultra hyper partisanship of which there is no foreseeable way out of it as it stands.
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
I don't want to get into a debate. Debates are like Shakespeare's 'fool' -- "full of sound and fury, signifying nothing". I just want to understand. Do you think it's possible that a group of elites owning two-thirds of the world's wealth might poise a graver thread to human liberty and freedoms than a bunch of nanny-state types out to abolish plastic bags, etc?

If you want the truth, I think both Republicans and Democrats are aiming for complete control and power over Americans, and how they conduct and go about their lives. I always will despise The Nanny state that won't change, but I've also acknowledge that the Republicans are not innocent of that either. What's really got me concerned are things like the Patriot Act and surveillance and the mass imprisonment of people for which the Democrats are actually the lesser evil in that regard. but obviously that does not get them off the hook because they're headed in the same direction, just in a different way.

I try to explain to people it's not really the issues themselves like bags and helmets and such. It's really the political mechanisms that are being placed and instituted which skirts and pushes further the limits of that gray area of individual freedoms and liberties of which imo, poses a real serious threat that can be used to pave the way to more totalitarian measures with each new legislation that gets produced and enforced thereafter.

I've seen the losses of freedom we've had since the 60s to now. It's incremental and subtle but society is getting more restrictive every decade that passes.

More recent generations are born into that. It's normal to them, so they don't see the erosion that has been going on and likely don't think it's a big deal which makes the argument all that much more difficult to point out.
 

Sunstone

De Diablo Del Fora
Premium Member
If you want the truth, I think both Republicans and Democrats are aiming for complete control and power over Americans, and how they conduct and go about their lives. I always will despise The Nanny state that won't change, but I've also acknowledge that the Republicans are not innocent of that either. What's really got me concerned are things like the Patriot Act and surveillance and the mass imprisonment of people for which the Democrats are actually the lesser evil in that regard. but obviously that does not get them off the hook because they're headed in the same direction, just in a different way.

I try to explain to people it's not really the issues themselves like bags and helmets and such. It's really the political mechanisms that are being placed and instituted which skirts and pushes further the limits of that gray area of individual freedoms and liberties of which imo, poses a real serious threat that can be used to pave the way to more totalitarian measures with each new legislation that gets produced and enforced thereafter.

I've seen the losses of freedom we've had since the 60s to now. It's incremental and subtle but society is getting more restrictive every decade that passes.

More recent generations are born into that. It's normal to them, so they don't see the erosion that has been going on and likely don't think it's a big deal which makes the argument all that much more difficult to point out.

Spot on! Thanks for your response.
 
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