MasterBlaster
@MasterBlaster@lemmy.world
- Comment on The rich convinced us that taxing them is too complicated but everyday people can be taxed pretty easily 4 days ago:
I’ve been fighting and calling out billionaires my whole life. I also want the rest of us to be better off, so I call out obvious bullshit like this for our benefit, not theirs.
I weary of bots and morons who can’t think reacting on pure emotional need to “own” someone else.
- Comment on The rich convinced us that taxing them is too complicated but everyday people can be taxed pretty easily 4 days ago:
What mulgrubs said, plus at least they had to work for it. Today, it’s just handed to them.
- Comment on The rich convinced us that taxing them is too complicated but everyday people can be taxed pretty easily 4 days ago:
Oooooh, I miss understood thought you were asking me what research is. You wanted me to do the work for you. Yeah, no. If you are older than 12, you should already know how to do that. If you don’t care enough to do it, that’s on you. I did.
- Comment on The rich convinced us that taxing them is too complicated but everyday people can be taxed pretty easily 5 days ago:
See, ad hominem attacks means you got nothing. Have a nice day, come back when you have a convincing counterpoint.
- Comment on The rich convinced us that taxing them is too complicated but everyday people can be taxed pretty easily 5 days ago:
Okay, I’ll bite. Other than going to a full-featured library, or contacting the nearest university with expertise on the desired topic, what does count as research for a layperson?
- Comment on The rich convinced us that taxing them is too complicated but everyday people can be taxed pretty easily 1 week ago:
Lol! You have zero clue. I’m close to the opposite of the on line spectrum. I learned how to be informed in the old days, when we were taught his to read and research.
When I don’t know something, I look it up. In discussion forums, I read the other comments before making my own, usually. If someone tells me I’m wrong, I go see what shows up elsewhere on the topic. Most importantly, I’m not immediately condescending or insulting.
- Comment on The rich convinced us that taxing them is too complicated but everyday people can be taxed pretty easily 1 week ago:
I see your point, but disagree with the approach as a long term policy. We can limit the accumulation by taxing the profits. If we can’t do that, then the wealth tax won’t be any more successful as they will hide that, too.
- Comment on The rich convinced us that taxing them is too complicated but everyday people can be taxed pretty easily 1 week ago:
That’s why we have the taxes we have. As you point out, business works with the help of society. However, taxing it as property is a completely messed up approach and will lead to there being little incente to to invest. That’s why we tax profit, not mere existance, as we do for property.
- Comment on The rich convinced us that taxing them is too complicated but everyday people can be taxed pretty easily 1 week ago:
I didn’t think I had to explicitly repeat what I said in a couple other comments I made on the matter. I won’t cut and paste that for you, (and since you set the mode to name calling) shithead.
- Comment on The rich convinced us that taxing them is too complicated but everyday people can be taxed pretty easily 1 week ago:
So, the government should decide how much wealth its citizens should have, and enforce that? I think there are better ways to approch this than turning citizens into subjects.
- Comment on The rich convinced us that taxing them is too complicated but everyday people can be taxed pretty easily 1 week ago:
How long does one own property, and what resources are used by structures on that property that the community has to supply, maintain, or upgrade? What damage might said structures cause to the community while in use? What is lost by the community by selling that property to a private owner? How does a community fund its own services, governance, police, fire department? How are roads and power lines built?
Now, what community is incurring costs by someone owning a stake in a business? What resources does that transfer of money take away from the community? What is the community? What did that community supply to make it possible to invest in that company or buy that stock?
It might not be rocket science, but it is not a “no brainer”. Stocks, like “intellectual property”, have no physical presence. They are not semi-permanent objects taking physical space or requiring physical resources to create or maintain over time. They do not take physical resources that can no longer be used elsewhere.
- Comment on The rich convinced us that taxing them is too complicated but everyday people can be taxed pretty easily 1 week ago:
That simplistic comparison has absolutely zero relationship to reality. Think about it a bit more, if you know how making money on stock investing works, and see if you can find the differences.
- Comment on The rich convinced us that taxing them is too complicated but everyday people can be taxed pretty easily 1 week ago:
Note that property taxes, when reassessed every 10 years or so, are also adjusted with changes to the mil rate, as appropriate to keep taxes from property assessment changes from causing people to leave town.
Equities change in value daily. How should those be assessed, and what is the proper response when the equities decrease in value by 30% during a market crash? Does the government refund the previously paid taxes? What if that money is your retirement income?
At what point does a tax on equities essentially become a continuous draw-down of wealth on the same money year after year, resulting in absolutely no incentive to invest in business and for that matter a situation where it is impossible to build up any wealth? How will startups be funded? How will large, shoot for the stars projects be funded?
- Comment on The rich convinced us that taxing them is too complicated but everyday people can be taxed pretty easily 1 week ago:
Forget 39%. We have greater national debt as a percentage of GDP than we did in 1944. We need to reinstitute the tax brackets from then until 1965, which had a top rate of 90%. There are reasons we had a middle class back then, and this is one of them.
- Comment on Texas woman arrested after Facebook post over city's water concerns. 1 week ago:
Saw this earlier this morning. Was not surprised it was Texas. Government there doesn’t really care about the citizens and is most concerned about keeping power.
Public reports of basic civic failures that cause sickness and death would obviously be silenced.
Notice the lack of urgency by the mayor and other authorities, and the fact she had to file a civil case to get any response at all.
The movie Brazil was supposed to be absurdist. It was not a model for governance.
- Comment on [deleted] 3 weeks ago:
I’m confused. Are you serious? I can’t identify any sarcasm in the text. I’m worried you might not understand the difference between fiction and reality.
- Comment on How long until the rise of games with mods turns into user created games. 2 months ago:
Well, I started playing Skyrim about 3 years ago, and I now have over 200 mods. It’s almost as high quality graphics and sound as modern games, plus I have a huge choice of scenarios I can install. Wild stuff.
Cyberpunk 2077 might be next for me, unless I decide to play skyblivion!
- Comment on AI Fails at 96% of Jobs (New Study) | ColdFusion [12:48] 3 months ago:
So far, just lots of unemployed people.
- Comment on Students from Western Carolina University are heckled as they march to their new polling place - 2 miles down a busy highway with no sidewalks — after officials voted to close their on campus polling 3 months ago:
I heard no heckling, just traffic and one horn that could have been either support or heckling.
- Comment on Students from Western Carolina University are heckled as they march to their new polling place - 2 miles down a busy highway with no sidewalks — after officials voted to close their on campus polling 3 months ago:
I think their not usually wrong expectation was the students would decide it was too much trouble to do it. Good on them that they are more driven than many.
- Comment on Signs that your platform (Nextdoor) has turned to trash 4 months ago:
Now, go back tomorrow and see if they’re still turned off.
- Comment on After Elon Musk’s Boring Co. was cited for serious safety violations, the Nevada governor’s office stepped in. Then someone deleted evidence of that meeting 6 months ago:
You’re kidding, right?
- Comment on Will AI make humans extinct? 14:52 1 year ago:
Racism is a powerful motivator, unfortunately.
- Comment on Skyblivion, the fan remake of Oblivion in Skyrim's engine, nears completion 1 year ago:
Perhaps he heard the same thing I did - Bethesda announced a soon to be released refresh of the game.
- Comment on CFCs 2 years ago:
Many, unfortunately, are so deep in doublethink the won’t believe that tricky Dick initiated the whole thing with the EPA, clean water or air act, and the endangered species acts. Some came after, i think, but he set it rolling. He was still a bad dude, but he did some good stuff
- Comment on CFCs 2 years ago:
I literally had this exact exchange with someone last year, when they tried to cast doubt on global warming by comparing it to the ozone. Another person did the same , using acid rain, and I pointed out that the northeast sued the shit out of the Midwest until they cut that shit with the coal fire power plants.
- Comment on Dark Age of Camelot introduces new and returning seasonal tasks in its Midwinter Festival 2 years ago:
My thoughts, exactly. I still have the original game in the box . World of WarCrack captured me for a few years. I still remember the beauty of the world as I ran or rode horse between cities. The pine forests with snow falling was amazing.
I lost interest because I’m a solitary gamer and you really need to be a guild member to enjoy it. That leads to mandatory raids at 2 am, etc., which I just can’t handle.
- Comment on Returning to the office is 'wildly more expensive' today than in 2019—here's how much people are spending 2 years ago:
There’s no getting around day care for pre-kindergarten kids. My son usually plays all afternoon with a few other boys and girls in the neighborhood. I give him a walkie-talkie for simple communication.
There’s no excuse for how our society deals with childcare. It’s too expensive for most, yet the caretakers are extremely low paid. We need to at least consider something like the European approach.
Right now, if we can’t find service, we can’t work a well paying job, so we fall into poverty and need to get welfare. How is that better than the alternative?
- Comment on Returning to the office is 'wildly more expensive' today than in 2019—here's how much people are spending 2 years ago:
7 year old, goes to school. I save on after-care, which ain’t cheap. Where I am, one can lose their kids for neglect if s/he comes home to an empty house up to 12 years old.
Hell, when I was in grade school, I walked to and from school, got home, got a snack, watched TV, or played with friends until parents got home.
Since there is statistically less crime now than then, I’m scratching my head over why we all have to be so scared of everything.
- think of the children!
- Comment on Returning to the office is 'wildly more expensive' today than in 2019—here's how much people are spending 2 years ago:
Especially if you have kids. Daycare adds $1300-$1500 per month for one child.