I don’t know why anyone is worried about this - the worse the corruption and give away to the 0.01% the bigger the blowback. The end result is the 0.01% are going to pay far more than if they had been reasonable.
US Senate passes sweeping tax overhaul bill
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Re: US Senate passes sweeping tax overhaul bill
#22Re: US Senate passes sweeping tax overhaul bill
#23One of the problems of US is the fact that protesting is virtually impossible. Unless there are 1,000,000 people in the streets of DC for two weeks, no one will care. Protesting in your city has little impact on the federal level. Also The general lack of public spaces makes it hard. And the fact that the police cracks down pretty hard on things after the first display of some sort of "disobedience". Look at the phot…
>Fuck I hope at least there will be a real NeoTokyo in the future.
This is my hope as well. I mean, if the future is going to be one big dysoptian hellscape, then I feel that having a cyberpunk noir metropolis to play around in would be only fair.
Re: US Senate passes sweeping tax overhaul bill
#24Annnnd they pulled the AMT repeal.
Re: US Senate passes sweeping tax overhaul bill
#25One of the problems of US is the fact that protesting is virtually impossible. Unless there are 1,000,000 people in the streets of DC for two weeks, no one will care. Protesting in your city has little impact on the federal level. Also The general lack of public spaces makes it hard. And the fact that the police cracks down pretty hard on things after the first display of some sort of "disobedience". Look at the phot…
If you want to understand why protesting can be inneffective, I highly recommend "Twitter and Tear Gas" by Zeynep Tufekci (https://www.twitterandteargas.org/ with CC version available - but buy it!).
One important factor: protests are only effective if they demonstrate the ability of the movement to affect elections. There are multiple reasons why the senate is not concerned and they're all... highly concerning.
Re: US Senate passes sweeping tax overhaul bill
#26One of the problems of US is the fact that protesting is virtually impossible. Unless there are 1,000,000 people in the streets of DC for two weeks, no one will care. Protesting in your city has little impact on the federal level. Also The general lack of public spaces makes it hard. And the fact that the police cracks down pretty hard on things after the first display of some sort of "disobedience". Look at the phot…
If you want to understand why protesting can be inneffective, I highly recommend "Twitter and Tear Gas" by Zeynep Tufekci ( https://www.twitterandteargas.org/ with CC version available - but buy it!). One important factor: protests are only effective if they demonstrate the ability of the movement to affect elections. There are multiple reasons why the senate is not concerned and they're all... highly concerning.
> One important factor: protests are only effective if they demonstrate the ability of the movement to affect elections. There are multiple reasons why the senate is not concerned and they're all... highly concerning.
Indeed. Furthermore an angry mob literally at the foot steps of the capitol. For a month. Angry as shit crowd. They need to pass through you. There aren't enough cops to arrest all of you in the entirety of the DC area. Don't break laws though. Wait for them to do that.
Furthermore, I've been intrigued by Vaclav Havels (there were more people involved) idea of Parallel Polis. https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/vaclav-havels-le...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallel_Polis
Basically slowly create a parallel government that offers competing services. You can start small. Offer healthcare at competitive price for those who pay you "taxes". If I could pay two grand a year and get some perks (some sort of healthcare and over time more) out of it I would definitely consider it. Provide accredited education (over internet? idk). I believe having read somewhere that the US legal framework allows for this if you establish yourself as a Native American tribe as they can get out of quite a few obligations to the state and federal governments.
Re: US Senate passes sweeping tax overhaul bill
#27I don’t know why anyone is worried about this - the worse the corruption and give away to the 0.01% the bigger the blowback. The end result is the 0.01% are going to pay far more than if they had been reasonable.
The standard operating procedure when American oligarchs feel threatened is war and racial/ethnic/religious division to distract the rubes. So probably quite a few people should be worried.
I like your optimism though.
Re: US Senate passes sweeping tax overhaul bill
#28The law making process is so clearly broken. I see this as a contributing factor to the long gradual decline of the role of the USA in the world. The reemergence of China should be engendering a positive spirit of lifting the game, not a money grabbing exercise. If you can’t make evidence based laws for the people then society will be warped into some dysfunctional dystopian end game.
To a large extent, the broken parts of US politics stem from the lack of actual written rules. Many things that should be codified are actually "gentlemen's agreements", where people agree to act in good faith. Today's show on the Senate floor was the logical conclusion of an entire political party deciding to break every aspect of that unstated agreement,
AFAICT, this is the same in most of the world, a lot of the political and government process is based on people acting "properly" beyond the minimal requirements of the law.
There is often a difference between "legal" and "moral", so to say.
Re: US Senate passes sweeping tax overhaul bill
#29I have been watching comments on NYTimes and Fox News and what surprised was not a single person (out of couple of thousands) actually estimated their tax bill and compared. There is one calculator out here (which might not be accurate because of changes): https://www.calcxml.com/calculators/trump-tax-reform-calcula... I used it to arrive at following numbers. If this tax calculator is right then there is indeed ~$10…
Those numbers you posted are probably inaccurate. The true numbers really depend on whether you itemize your deductions, and how much. This particular tax bill substantially raises taxes for people who itemize, in particular states with high local taxes like California. I don’t know about Fox News but The NY Times had a good analysis of this: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/11/28/upshot/what-t... Obviously m…
The numbers are probably a little better than he posted, because of several last minute changes:
including a provision that will allow taxpayers to deduct up to $10,000 in state and local property taxes paid and allowing lower-income individuals to claim the medical expense deduction.
Re: US Senate passes sweeping tax overhaul bill
#30One of the problems of US is the fact that protesting is virtually impossible. Unless there are 1,000,000 people in the streets of DC for two weeks, no one will care. Protesting in your city has little impact on the federal level. Also The general lack of public spaces makes it hard. And the fact that the police cracks down pretty hard on things after the first display of some sort of "disobedience". Look at the phot…
The thing is protest has been criminalized. The people who protested Trump's inauguration are facing what amounts to life in federal prison. Yes there was one car damaged but the Nazis who's protest lead to the death of that young woman face no charges.