Steve
@Steve@communick.news
- Comment on The conservatives are calling basic Progressive policies "Communist". 5 hours ago:
That’s different. That’s based purely on the amount. And I’m not just talking about salary, but compensation, which includes stock options, expense accounts, and other benefit packages that executives get beyond salary.
- Comment on The conservatives are calling basic Progressive policies "Communist". 8 hours ago:
During the 1950-60s (the best period for income inequality) CEO pay was ~30x the company average. If you want to key the limit to the company minimum as percentage of maximum, something between 1-2% would get you to a good place.
- Comment on The conservatives are calling basic Progressive policies "Communist". 9 hours ago:
Direct price controls like are generally a bad idea. Often, unintended consequences make the underlying problem worse.
For drug prices, most are created with substantial government funded research. The government could leverage that into a major patent ownership stake, then immediately license the drug for generic production.
For child care, the government could give a monthly stipend to all parents. Parents could then decide, use it for child care, or quit/cut hours to care for your kid yourself.
I’m not sure about interest rate limits, that might work. But 10% is kinda low; Maybe someplace between 15-20%. And credit cards aren’t even the worst offenders. Pay day loans are much worse, with rates over 200% sometimes.
- Comment on Minimum Wage Must Cover Basics 1 day ago:
Basic healthcare should be covered without any wage.
While disconnecting health care from a wage, may as well disconnect the others also with a UBI. People shouldn’t be loving on the street, no matter their circumstances.
- Comment on Maybe tax the greedy top 10% 1 day ago:
The top 10% get fucked by taxes. Too much money for the public to care, not enough money to rig the government in their favor.
Even the top 0.1% aren’t the problem.
It’s the top 0.001% that need to be taxed to extinction. - Comment on TSA says officers must stand, chairs banned at airport checkpoints nationwide 2 days ago:
I remember that. When hijackings were common, everyone knew to sit tight, follow directions, and it would be fine in the end. Then 9/11 changed that calculus. Now every passenger will immediately fight for/with their lives to stop it.
That, and the hardened cockpit door you can’t even shoot your way into anymore.
- Comment on They say "Change is slow" for anything that benefits the working class, but change is always instant for the Billionaire Class. 2 days ago:
The asset class has been pushing this change, increment by increment, piece by piece, for roughly 50 years.
- Comment on TSA says officers must stand, chairs banned at airport checkpoints nationwide 3 days ago:
Every time it comes up I have to remind people TSA has never caught a terrorist. Some were caught before getting to TSA, or after passing the TSA screening, but never by TSA itself.
Some say we need security screening at airports. Yes! We had it before TSA. Usually run by the airport itself; An x-ray for bags, and a metal detector for people. It’ wasn’t limited to people with tickets, everyone could go through. It was basically just a gun check. Much faster and less invasive than what TSA does. And this is the important part: It was at least as effective at catching terrorists!
- Comment on [deleted] 1 week ago:
Because they can’t be done unilaterally.
You need someone else to actually put you on the payroll to ‘pirate’ a job. You need a government to document your citizenshipon in their databases.Pirating doesn’t require anyone else to do something for you.
- Comment on [NSQ Friday] Is this a stupid question? 1 week ago:
True enough.
I can tell the word “Yes” because of its spelling.
But nobody was talking about “yes”, so that seems a non sequitur. - Comment on [NSQ Friday] Is this a stupid question? 1 week ago:
What can I tell because of the way it is?
- Comment on [NSQ Friday] Is this a stupid question? 1 week ago:
Is it?
The metacognition it requires confounds lots of people.
What makes a question “stupid”? - Comment on [NSQ Friday] Is this a stupid question? 1 week ago:
I’ve been asking people that for years.
Still haven’t gotten a good answer. - Comment on Do turkeys that tell you to cook from frozen usually turn out as good as thawed ones? 1 week ago:
I’ve always thought recipes that insist on thawed food and preheated ovens, do so only to ensure the prescribed cooking time is correct.
I cook frozen stuff all the time. I never pre-thaw unless I need to manipulate it in some way that I can’t as a solid frozen block. Like, you can’t stuff a frozen turkey.
- Comment on Capitalism is all about using state power to protect capital by force 1 week ago:
Psst: that’s socialism.
- Comment on Capitalism is all about using state power to protect capital by force 1 week ago:
Why not?
Company ownership is already broken into shares. There’s no law of nature or logic that dictates how those shares are distributed. There are all sorts of ways to divide them between capital investors, labor investors, even outside stake holders like customers and suppliers. Any individual may be a labor investor in one company, and a capital investor in others. That one person would embody both your bourgeois and proletarian classes.Again large economies are too complex for simple, clean, universal solutions. Their complexity necessitates more complex thinking.
- Comment on Capitalism is all about using state power to protect capital by force 1 week ago:
Yes I did! Neither socialism, communism, capitalism, feudalism, or any other economic system, can yield the best result in every situation. There is no one answer for everything. No economy in the world is all one thing or another. It’s only by blending the strengths of each, using what works best where it works best, can we find greatest benefit for everyone.
So yes. A socialist minded form of capitalism, such as was built in the post depression US, is probably the best default baseline. Then in certain specific naturally monopolistic markets, a more communistic model may be needed.
- Comment on Capitalism is all about using state power to protect capital by force 1 week ago:
True. The government is supposed to manage that. It’s one of the lies of neoliberalism, that “Greed is Good”.
- Comment on Capitalism is all about using state power to protect capital by force 1 week ago:
Not realy. That’s capitalism being managed by neoliberal economic philosophy.
It really has more in common with feudalism, than capitalism. Capitalism by definition requires fair transparent markets, with no dominant players able to take advantage of their size.Capitalism as managed by democratic socialist philosophy (not sure if there’s an official term it) is closer to the actual definition of capitalism.
- Comment on What would happen if the next President, said I want that ballroom destroyed and the White House put back like it was, and I want to use all Union members? And done in Six months? 1 week ago:
There is no resistance to doing renovations to the White House. Rump as shown that POTUS only needs to speak it, and it shall be done.
- Comment on What would happen if the next President, said I want that ballroom destroyed and the White House put back like it was, and I want to use all Union members? And done in Six months? 1 week ago:
It’s not very large. Surprisingly small really. And if you truly spare no expense with crews working 24/7, it can be done quite quickly. 6mo is agressive, but it can be done, and done well in that time.
- Comment on What would happen if the next President, said I want that ballroom destroyed and the White House put back like it was, and I want to use all Union members? And done in Six months? 1 week ago:
The people doing the demo and reconstruction of the White Hiuse, are different people than who would be fixing the executive legal landscape. Both can be done at the same time.
- Comment on Why doesn't windows in detail mode show the size of a folder unless you hover over it? They will show the size of files but not a folder unless you either go to properties or something? 2 weeks ago:
Because showing the folder size requires scanning all the files in it. For some folders that could mean tens of thousands of files. Which would take quite some time.
There are ways to speed that up. But you’d be scanning all the files, all the time to keep it updated.
Basically, it’s a lot of overhead
- Comment on The case for a robot tax to redistribute wealth 2 weeks ago:
You want to redistribute wealth?
You need a wealth tax - Comment on ‘I feel invisible’: over-50s reveal harsh realities of trying to get a job 2 weeks ago:
Yah!
It’s not like the penalties on withdrawing from your retirement accounts early actually matters?
Who isn’t a billionaire at 50? You aren’t? You need to get a better job looser! - Comment on Was there ever a well-documented, widely accepted to be *false*, accusation of genocide? 2 weeks ago:
On a global scale, with buy in from multiple international human rights organizations? No. Once you reach enough global critical mass of agrement, it’s not a false accusation almost by definition.
It has been and is currently the case, that some local governments or groups falsely push a genocide narrative for their own benefit. That does happen. When it does, you never find anyone outside said group that truly believes it.
- Comment on Tomorrow... 2 weeks ago:
I’m glad you get to definite wrong for everyone else
It’s not the boon it seems to be.
There are a variety of formats that are thriving and in constant use all over the world that differ from what you consider correct
I’m aware. That’s why it’s annoying to be the one who determines right and wrong, nobody listens.
- Comment on Tomorrow... 2 weeks ago:
In every left to right language, the largest value numerical digits are on the left, smallest value digits are on the right.
The country doesn’t matter. Years are bigger than months. Months are bigger than days. If your country does anything other than YYYY*MM*DD, they’re doing numbers wrong.
- Comment on Tomorrow... 2 weeks ago:
It’s backwards everywhere
- Comment on Tomorrow... 2 weeks ago:
The date is backwards. 2026-09-15