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I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

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Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#421

Post by JumpinJack_Cash »

laughing_man wrote: post #351
daishi55 wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are not trolling. They are stating the simple, undeniable fact that there is more than enough to go around and if we had a more equitable distribution of resources, we could take care of everyone with disabilities 10x over with plenty to spare.

The only reason there's more than enough to go around is people work for the betterment of their own life. If you disconnect the link between work and material comfort that simple, undeniable fact will no longer be fact.

> > If you disconnect the link between work and material comfort that simple, undeniable fact will no longer be fact.

The disconnect is already there, any 5 year old already understands that stealing a comic book at the comic book store is better than paying for it. And more and more people are resorting to it at every level of society

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#422

Post by xbmcuser »

throwaway837379 wrote: post #395
xbmcuser wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. I don't believe pure capitalism or pure socialism works; we need something in between. China is somewhat like that, but because of the type of government it has, it is viewed with a jaundiced eye. Countries exist for their citizens, so things like healthcare, housing, and most infrastructure should be provided or subsidized by the government.

Whose effort should be taxed more to provide money to subsidize it?

After capital reaches a certain amount, wealth is no longer about effort. Capital keeps generating more capital. As long as you tax that capital and force it back into the economy, things will be okay. Otherwise, it will destroy the economy. This is a simple math problem that people, even on Hacker News where logic and math are valued, simply ignore. If the pie grows by 5% but 80 to 90% of that growth is captured by a small percentage, they will keep taking more as their capital increases, leaving a smaller share of the pie to be divided among more and more people. Ie the feudal times where most economic output was controlled by a few. The world is fast moving back to those times.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#423

Post by george916a »

Telaneo wrote: post #5

> If your worth is not determined by your productivity, then what remains of you underneath it all? Everything else. You are worth so much more than your productivity. I'm glad I never got sucked into the protestant work ethic, since defining yourself based on your labour and the value you generate from that sounds woefully narrow-minded (this doesn't feel like quite the right word, but close enough). It's probably h…

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Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#424

Post by george916a »

avalys wrote: post #8
Telaneo wrote: post #5

> If your worth is not determined by your productivity, then what remains of you underneath it all? Everything else. You are worth so much more than your productivity. I'm glad I never got sucked into the protestant work ethic, since defining yourself based on your labour and the value you generate from that sounds woefully narrow-minded (this doesn't feel like quite the right word, but close enough). It's probably h…

Who produces the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the house you live in, the energy you use, the medicine you consume, etc. while you airily define ‘productivity’ as reading the classics and spending time with friends?

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Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#425

Post by inigyou »

seanclayton wrote: post #44
inigyou wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are a fish unable to see water. Yes, you need food. Guess what, we have plenty of food. But the system for allocating food says this guy doesn't get any because he's disabled.

We could make virtually infinite food as well, but that isn't profitable enough.

We're already using two thirds of an earth for farming. We could make 50% more.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#426

Post by inigyou »

reverius42 wrote: post #397
inigyou wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Capitalism means resource allocation is primarily decided by billionaires. Why would they give resources up in any way that doesn't make them even richer?

No, the term for what you describe is "oligarchy". Under "capitalism", the invisible hand of the free market is supposed to decide resource allocation.

That's right-libertarianism, which is incompatible with capitalism.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#427

Post by entech »

Worth is subjective. You are worth something to someone regardless of your job. If you have a small child are their whole world. Same with your parents. Trying to garner sympathy and have strangers assign worth to you is pointless - because strangers don't value anyone around them for the simple fact that they don't interact with them.

Whether you agree or not - productivity is important. If there are more people that need support than those that can 'produce' the system does not work.

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#428

Post by JumpinJack_Cash »

arjie wrote: post #350
zem wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, it is very obviously being hoarded by the capital class! there has been tons of writing on the subject, no one can credibly deny that that's what's happening right now.

Certainly, and notably the 'capital class' that's 'hoarding' the housing he's talking about are what look like normal people. You'd make more money taxing half of the value of those who own SFHs in Santa Clara alone than you would Elon Musk - and hurt productive capacity and jobs far less. The disconnect between the desire to extract what people describe as a fair share from the 'capital class' comes up rapidly again…

> > and hurt productive capacity and jobs far less

This is so BS, the productivity of a company is given by cash flow and Discounted Cash Flow (output>input) , not stock market value , taxing Musk would force him to sell stock and dilute the ownership of Tesla and SpaceX down among the population proportionally and according to the brackets of taxation applied.

The fear that you are describing is exactly what's wrong with society, the virus of the mind that attributes to CEOs and especially tech CEOs demigod properties and if their ownership and decision making control were to be diluted the company would collapse and die.

If anything it's the opposite, the oldest companies in America have their ownership much more diluted than they once were . JPMorgan is not controlled by John Pierpont Morgan, same for all the companies which make up what once was Standard Oil

If anything history is showing that for the survival of a company it is almost a condition non negotiable that its ownership and decision making has to be diluted among millions of people with a low inequality factor, or at least lower than the one necessary in the first years of the company

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#429

Post by NuclearPM »

cucumber3732842 wrote: post #339
jjav wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would not end up in the same place because then you'd be in a world without billionaires, so you would not have people who can too easily just buy every politician and law they wish for their own perpetuation. That alone would be a massive win.

It's not the ~50 billionares I'm worried about. They are human. You can appeal to Bill Gate's desire to leave a legacy he's proud of. You can appeal to Elon Musk's desire for technological progress. What worries me are the god knows how many "billionaire equivelent" entities and institutions that swing their dicks around in the same manner but do so with the sociopathic ruthlessness of corporations and governments. P…

50???

Re: I'm 38 and I Can't Support Myself Anymore

#430

Post by mstaoru »

nevertoolate wrote: post #286
mstaoru wrote: post #200

> I’m 38 years old and I just had to ask my mom if I could borrow money [...] potentially spending the next 50 years without stable income Without stable income it might be more like 20 years. (I wish you personally a long and bountiful life!) I'm in a similar boat. As a 3rd child in a somewhat poor family, I do not have any inheritance and actually need to help my mom financially (though it's not a burden). My wife…

If you live your life in stress it makes it strange. Breathe less, stress less.

It's more of a resignation I think? An overwhelming majority of people (on Earth, I don't mean the highly skewed US/EU citizens) are one accident away from total ruin. I don't stress about it but I also recognize how broken we are still, as society.
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