My brother-in-law’s ex wife is 35. She has only been employed as a waitress. She is nearing her PHD in Women’s Studies.Her goal? Teaching Women’s Studies!
Yes. God forbid we take women seriously.
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Given the era that we’re entering, I think “left” and “right” are going to be completely flipped.
The people who were left wing will struggle to conserve a past of freedoms (and thus become conservative) while the people who were right wing will forge ahead with reforms that dismantle over 200 years of the goal of liberty and justice for all and into a new realm of their own sinister ideology (it’s looking like nationalist socialist?).
We’ve moved so far right we’re pretty much upside down right now.
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Piketty’s work is impressive and admired by the economists who disagree with him.
That said, we’ll have to agree to disagree on the substance of your various assertions.
No, I’m responding with complete disgust towards John’s clearly stated position, which he did not happen to clarify in any other manner, given the opportunity. You can believe exactly what you like.
Be well. I hope you someday find the modicum of serenity that currently eludes you.
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I was just looking for a middle-ground between “who knows anything” and “I’ve figured it out and the professionals who agree with me are evil liars.”
I’m not a fan of the Kochs, but I think pretending that anything they fund in part is corrupted and not worth consideration is not much different than pretending that all government projects are corrupted and not worth consideration, because the government also does objectively bad things. It’s a distraction from the constructive criticism of specific arguments based on the data, alone.
You seek serenity, I don’t =) . Please don’t assume your values are superior without clear evidence to the contrary, thanks. You can also refrain from praying for me.
Not me. I never got the freedoms that I wanted in the world. I’ll keep on fighting for them, all that has changed is that it has become a lot harder (not that persuading Hillary was ever going to be easy). I’m a radical libertarian-communist rather than a liberal though.
It is Reactionary Fascism. Traditionally it is further to the right than conservatism. Bringing back the status quo ante is never progressive.
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on the other hand, in st:tng there were utopian elements to the end of work and the necessity of an income with everyone allowed to pursue their interests and enthusiasms while in the real world the end of work due to automation is a dystopia of no jobs and no money.
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Did you want to write some kind of comment about that point?
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Good for her. I hope she does well.
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Even if a somebody delivered neoliberalism to my door, I would refuse to sign for it!
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Congratulations to her.
What’s your excuse?
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Yep. Always a good field of study and we could do with more teachers in it.
And along with Women’s Studies teacher, the Elizabethan theatre and the Early French scatology, sounds like that poster knows some really cool people. Maybe they should post here.
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One of the aims of a political movement is to change how society views certain aspects of the world. It’s naïve to assume that your classification scheme will adequately describe the ideological preferences of your opponents.
I CHOOSE … Truth!
well, um. I guess, I’ll choose … deceit.
I CHOOSE… Justice!
I guess that leaves me with … inequity.
I CHOOSE “The American Way”
Damn! Well, I guess that leaves me with
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Let me tell you an old Irish ghost story. A farmer came home, one night, and said to his wife that the harvest had not sold well. “We have to turn my father out,” he said, “we cannot afford to feed him any more.” The old man said nothing, infirm as he was, but the farmer’s wife put the newborn in the crib and began to plead with her husband. He remained steadfast, but agreed to let the old man have a blanket.
“Nay, give him only half,” said the newborn in the crib. “I will need the other half when it comes my turn to turn you out!”
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thanks for the link! it’s definitely informative. and the rates are different than i would have expected. at the same time, it’s worth noting that it’s a simplification on a couple of fronts.
first, looking at norway’s wikipedia page, they exclude b/t 5k and 8k usd in income. then, there appear to be a flat taxation rate – at least for social security? – that applies before the bracket system kicks in. and, finally, there’s a surtax of 9% that kicks in above 52k usd which sits on top of the bracket system.
there aren’t many deductions – but some listed on the wikipedia page include union dues, and parental allowances for raising kids. (!)
the gist, i’d say, is that simply comparing bracket rates doesn’t tell the whole story.
one key sentence – for me – in the article you linked was this:
The top marginal tax rate of 46.8 percent (state average and federal combined rates) kicks in at 8.5 times the average U.S. income (around $400,000). Comparatively, few taxpayers in the United States face the top marginal rate.
which doesn’t seem very progressive at all.
to your point, though – which is spot on – taxes definitely reach down into the middle class more than they do here. but, they also reach up much further. and, in truth, i’m okay with paying more in taxes for a more equitable society.
what i’d like to see in the us is:
- financial transaction taxes
- a simplified tax code with fewer deductions
- fewer exclusions for corporations
- more tax brackets at the higher end ( rather than as is current, at the low end. ) with steepness increasing around 200k
( i’d be okay with a luxury vat as well. but, once a vat, always a vat. so i can see it could cause problems down the road. )
it’s not just enough to raise more revenue, of course. we’ve also got to funnel our revenue away from excessive military expenditures and into health care, education, and green infrastructure.
in the us, if the middle class were to pay more in taxes, the healthcare and education savings would free up more money overall. but, the upper middle class – of which i am sometimes a part – definitely has to pay more than we do. and the very wealthy? they didn’t do it alone. it’s time to contribute back!
( edit: okay, well. it would be. but the united disarray of trump is going to wreak havok for at least a decade. taxation is going to be the least of our worries. )
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I was not advocating freezing the old, rather that their outsized share of political and monetary influence is unjust. Again: I am not a young man myself! Though I do find it obscene that for example in US we have healthcare for the aged while it comes at a dear cost for the working poor, simply because old folks have an easier time voting…
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While you might not have achieved the freedoms you were seeking, I fear the framework that allowed you to seek them it’s what’s about to vanish and in need of preserving.
I don’t think we’re going back to the old days. At least that’s not the direction they’ll be trying to take us.
Sure they may hearken back to the glory days of the Fifties, but that was a golden age brought about by a Europe and Asia that was smashed to bits from a horrible world war and a relatively unscathed North America still hot from a war economy. Those days aren’t coming back.
What the alt-right is talking about now is “purity.” They want America to be like Hungary where the population is 90% white Christian (whatever “Christian” means). Thing is, that combination doesn’t even make up 50% of the United States now. That’s going to involve the displacement of literally hundreds of millions of people.
Meanwhile they’re in very close position to make Constitutional changes. They certainly have enough States lined up to start a Constitutional Convention and with some legislative tricks they might be able to radically alter the highest laws of the land in ways this country has never experienced. This won’t resemble anything the democracy the country has been since its inception, that separates church from state and offers checks and balances in government, so I can’t think of it as going back to old times.
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