231–240 of 309 posts
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I agree. When a couple of developers can start a software company with nothing but a credit card and an AWS account the concept of "capital" has changed a lot.
I have a feeling this idea is deceptive. Renting equipment has existed time immemorial.
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But personal responsibility is actually an important concept. It is completely unacceptable to not have $400 on reserve for an emergency as a functioning adult. That is a situation that can only be achieved by poor decision making and a lack of personal responsibility. Any strategy that is employed to remedy this has to contend with the fact that the individuals who need to have this situation remedied for themselves…
The overhead margin of basic life costs are much higher when one is poor then one is wealthy. It's an even higher overhead when trying to access our ever shrinking safety net with its perverse incentives and a high time and hassle factor. Blaming the victim for being poor is both ridiculous and counterproductive. You should wonder instead why basic personal finance skills aren't on any National education curriculum i…
https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/72745-the-reason-that-the-r...
I had a coach that when I'd ask about how to get out of tricky situations he'd often respond with something along the lines of "Bro, you f'd up a long time ago"... I don't think 40% is some magic number to begin hysteria. Neither is $400. Selling something to cover your expenses might be a blessing in disguise if the thing you sell is a liability in the first place (ex: a car you cant really afford). My observation o…
"They" need to be taught to demand a degree of rights, protections and subsidies in line with the rights, protections and subsidies afforded the already-wealthy.
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I have a feeling this idea is deceptive. Renting equipment has existed time immemorial.
What part of that is renting
This is a self-induced injury. Financial education should be mandatory, and started in elementary school.
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Yes and when they demand change and start "taxing the rich". You're going to find that a lot of doctors, lawyers, and people in IT who are making low six figures are going to be classified as "the rich".
> "According to statistical data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the top 1% had an adjusted gross income of $465,626 or higher for the 2014 tax year." "Doctors, lawyers, and IT people making low six figures" have absolutely nothing to fear. And for the extremely few fortunate people who actually make more than half a million dollars each year, they will easily be able to afford the new taxes.
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> "According to statistical data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the top 1% had an adjusted gross income of $465,626 or higher for the 2014 tax year." "Doctors, lawyers, and IT people making low six figures" have absolutely nothing to fear. And for the extremely few fortunate people who actually make more than half a million dollars each year, they will easily be able to afford the new taxes.
You really think the "populists" who want to "tax the rich" are going to stop At the 1%? It's not the 1% they despise - as evidence by the election - it's "the liberal west coast elites". The other 80% with households making less than $116K year would just as likely start taxing everyone who makes more than that. Have you noticed that most tax deductions that are designed to help the middle class phase out in the $12…
Yep.
Most people are perfectly capable of distinguishing between a middle class 2 bedroom house and someone who owns 15 vacation homes, a private jet, and private islands.
The real question is whether or not middle class people will punch down and behave as if no one can distinguish between a multi billionaire and and a normal middle class person or whether the middle class will refuse to let the billionaires put all of the stress on the middle class.
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The piece you're missing is that none of this is a mistake, the entire economy is designed to do this. Apathy and hoping it'll get better will if anything make it worse (not that I'm implying that's your position). The only thing that will make it better is demanding that things change. This means mass unionization, strikes, worker owned businesses, protests, leftist politicians like Sanders and Corbyn, and a whole p…
>the entire economy is designed to do this Unless you are a firm believer in the power of the Illuminati, we have as close to the opposite of a planned (and thus designed) economy as one can get in the present day. Just because a behavior or other feature in a complex system is emergent doesn't mean the system was initially designed that way.
In short:
1. A big chunk of the issues leading to today's constitution were tax and debt relief measures being instituted by the states in response to populist movements.
2. The framers were mostly very wealthy and biased toward preservation of capital.
3. Many of the measures instituted in the constitution were designed to preserve wealthy Americans' property (slaves, for instance). Populist debt relief efforts made this an especially high priority.
4. The only way to get the states to ratify the constitution was to concede many populist goals (state legislators were largely very wealthy as well, and apparently stubbornly pessimistic about the constitution despite its immediate necessity).
The book goes into great detail on the reasoning and compromises made to create the constitution. I think you will find that politics rigidly define the operation of our markets.
I get where you're coming from but you have some insufficient assumptions about the context in which this particular complex system operates.
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> "According to statistical data from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), the top 1% had an adjusted gross income of $465,626 or higher for the 2014 tax year." "Doctors, lawyers, and IT people making low six figures" have absolutely nothing to fear. And for the extremely few fortunate people who actually make more than half a million dollars each year, they will easily be able to afford the new taxes.
I'm currently below that threshold. But I could choose to expand my business, maybe hire a few people and create some jobs and productive economic output. But if you are going to tax me heavily for that then no, I'll probably just stick to what I am doing and not bother.
That’s fine. Since we have a free market economy, someone else who wants that money more than you will do it instead.