House Democrats are pushing to pay Americans $2,000 a month during the economic crisis. Trump has signaled support for a 2nd round of payments

[ducks]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-says-hes-interested-another-173929813.html

[Winehole23]

Sure, why not?

[RandomGuy]

Sounds like a good idea.

We gave out enough bailouts to big ass companies. Time for some gravy for the people who are actually being hurt.

[TimDunkem]

Could've already gotten that if most of the money given out didn't already go to corporations.

[TimDunkem]

Btw, ducks, since life hasn't changed for you and you have a freezer full of elk and fish, can I have your evil socialism check?

[monosylab1k]

The wealthy just play God and throw a bone to the masses whenever unrest starts bubbling.

There needs to be a true revolution in this country for actual change to happen. By revolution I mean blood in the streets. We’re at that point in this country. True change, unfortunately, doesn’t come without bloodshed, and there’s no difference here.

“Apathetic bloody planet, I’ve no sympathy at all”
-Douglas Adams

[CosmicCowboy]

The wealthy just play God and throw a bone to the masses whenever unrest starts bubbling.

There needs to be a true revolution in this country for actual change to happen. By revolution I mean blood in the streets. We’re at that point in this country. True change, unfortunately, doesn’t come without bloodshed, and there’s no difference here.

“Apathetic bloody planet, I’ve no sympathy at all”
-Douglas Adams

*reporting to homeland security*

[apalisoc_9]

This should have been done before.

[boutons_deux]

MIC/DoD is nothing but the oligarchy wealth-sucking America, with Wars Without End, total fraud, with $500M/year DoD propaganda to indoctrinate Americans that every fucking military person is a hero to be venerated reflexively.

[KobesAchilles]

The wealthy just play God and throw a bone to the masses whenever unrest starts bubbling.

There needs to be a true revolution in this country for actual change to happen. By revolution I mean blood in the streets. We’re at that point in this country. True change, unfortunately, doesn’t come without bloodshed, and there’s no difference here.

“Apathetic bloody planet, I’ve no sympathy at all”
-Douglas Adams

The time to do that was in the first half of the 20th century along with every other revolution. Russia, China, Germany, Spain, Italy, etc etc. The list is a long one

Nowadays it’s impossible for a revolution to happen. Weaponry is just beyond comprehension and add on to the fact that the US was very very intelligent during the 1950s and 60s. They spent billions of dollars on advertisement for the American way. People were studied like guinea pigs (even more so today) to feel placated to even though we aren’t. Even when blood on the streets did happen in the 60s, the government still didn’t do anything until foreign powers started shit talking us, mainly Russia.

Phones are tapped, drones can be launched anywhere anytime, high tech weaponry. Too much to think that civilians have any shot at a revolution. Plus we are purposefully divided into groups so we will in some ways feel like we aren’t united as a group and therefore can’t come together as one. Think about why you have to put race on your paperwork (starting from a young age) and say that you’re White, Native American, African American, Latino, instead of just saying American. From a young age we are boxed into different groups and this prevents revolution.

[baseline bum]

The time to do that was in the first half of the 20th century along with every other revolution. Russia, China, Germany, Spain, Italy, etc etc. The list is a long one

Nowadays it’s impossible for a revolution to happen. Weaponry is just beyond comprehension and add on to the fact that the US was very very intelligent during the 1950s and 60s. They spent billions of dollars on advertisement for the American way. People were studied like guinea pigs (even more so today) to feel placated to even though we aren’t. Even when blood on the streets did happen in the 60s, the government still didn’t do anything until foreign powers started shit talking us, mainly Russia.

Phones are tapped, drones can be launched anywhere anytime, high tech weaponry. Too much to think that civilians have any shot at a revolution. Plus we are purposefully divided into groups so we will in some ways feel like we aren’t united as a group and therefore can’t come together as one. Think about why you have to put race on your paperwork (starting from a young age) and say that you’re White, Native American, African American, Latino, instead of just saying American. From a young age we are boxed into different groups and this prevents revolution.

If we would have had an early 20th century revolution it would have been a communist one though. Teddy Roosevelt's progressivism is the only thing that saved us from at least an attempted communist revolution. As much as I hate Trump and our system of government of the last forty years I'd still take it over communism. Too bad we don't have another Teddy Roosevelt to save the nation again.

[KobesAchilles]

If we would have had an early 20th century revolution it would have been a communist one though. Teddy Roosevelt's progressivism is the only thing that saved us from at least an attempted communist revolution. As much as I hate Trump and our system of government of the last forty years I'd still take it over communism. Too bad we don't have another Teddy Roosevelt to save the nation again.
Communism just doesn’t work. But capitalism isn’t the end all be all either. A best case scenario is to somewhat combine the two. However, that would never happen bc the rich honestly (and rightfully in a way) believe that they’re better than us. And by rich I mean the top 1% not people here on Spurstalk showing off tax returns. The elite don’t believe that the middle class should have more money and they certainly don’t believe that lower class people should be helped either. I don’t really know what kind of reforms we could do today or how we could ever change anything seeing as nobody really knows anything about our economy and there’s really no oversight done by the people.

[midnightpulp]

If we would have had an early 20th century revolution it would have been a communist one though. Teddy Roosevelt's progressivism is the only thing that saved us from at least an attempted communist revolution. As much as I hate Trump and our system of government of the last forty years I'd still take it over communism. Too bad we don't have another Teddy Roosevelt to save the nation again.

As I'm sure everyone already knows, the big shift came through globalization. When manufacturing was at its peak in post-war America, Labor had much more bargaining power since American manufacturing was the only game in town. The automakers, electronics makers, and so on couldn't just easily pack up and move to County X then. The American government and the working class had all the leverage over the corporate class, so we could both tax the shit of out them and unionize against them for top dollar wages. And this dynamic was reflected in the wealth disparity between the top earners and median earners. Shit, even St. Ronnie taxed corporations much more :lol. https://corporatetax.procon.org/federal-corporate-income-tax-rates/

Then obviously that leverage shifted when American corporations could manufacture anywhere they want, even in shitty countries like China with all their human rights abuses and Bond-villain level government. The shareholder primacy concept was prioritized above all else, and here we are today.

Maybe I'm being naively idealistic, but I don't know why this "revolution" can't happen through mass boycotts of foreign made goods? When you think about, what foreign made goods do we really need? I've harped on this before, and haven't bought a new electronic gadget, tool, appliance for awhile. My gaming PC is running a 10 year old CPU, still on the 970, and still rocking my 2011 Dell Ultrasharp 2560x1440 monitor. For appliances, you can find any number of used "American made" vintage shit that will be of a hell of a lot better build quality than Chinese tat.

I do realize there's many small businesses who are unfortunately tied to China's manufacturing chain, and then can't simply "boycott" without their business going broke. But I don't feel any guilt about a mass boycott of Apple products kicking the shit out their bottom line until they bring manufacturing home. Same method for any other multibillion dollar corporation who centers manufacturing off shore. Again, idealistic. Have no clue how much an American made iPhone would cost. But perhaps if there's more wage growth due to more American manufacturing, there will be more purchasing power to buy the more expensive American made products.

Then there's the specter of automation. But we don't have to choose automation, and blindly submit to its use because "muh progress." (Furthermore, I think the automation boogeyman has been way overhyped. A lot of these demonstrations of robot chefs and bartenders and the shit from Boston Dynamics are basically carefully crafted magic shows, and usually involve remote control and teleoperation to a big degree).

[clambake]

*reporting to homeland security*

Report it


When you can step away from your butthole licking duties

[Thread]

Report it


When you can step away from your butthole licking duties

Moo, moo, buck-a-roo.

[clambake]

I wonder what room Katie is being tossed around in

[midnightpulp]

Communism just doesn’t work. But capitalism isn’t the end all be all either. A best case scenario is to somewhat combine the two. However, that would never happen bc the rich honestly (and rightfully in a way) believe that they’re better than us. And by rich I mean the top 1% not people here on Spurstalk showing off tax returns. The elite don’t believe that the middle class should have more money and they certainly don’t believe that lower class people should be helped either. I don’t really know what kind of reforms we could do today or how we could ever change anything seeing as nobody really knows anything about our economy and there’s really no oversight done by the people.

I've personally theorized about this dynamic, and I think a majority of the uber-rich (not all) would probably present somewhere on the sociopathy spectrum, because to acquire that much wealth almost invariably requires unethical and merciless behavior to an extent. Funny enough, watching the classic movie Arthur (about a drunk rich playboy). His family forces him to marry the daughter of some asshole rich guy name Bert Johnson. Arthur protests that he's a crook. And Arthur's father, without blinking an eye, says, "We're all crooks." These kind of stereotypes don't exist without reason. This pandemic is revealing the sociopathy of the uber-rich. I don't know how they aren't collectively cutting 9 figure checks right now as small business after small business faces extinction.

I don't want to hear about "25 million dollar donations" from Lord Zuckerberg. That's like someone who is worth 500K (which is probably your average upper-middle class net worth) donating a 190.00. What a joke.

And here's why there can never be reform or "revolution." Because too many Americans believe themselves to be "temporarily humiliated millionaires" and they kind of project themselves into the world of the uber-rich. Instead of them putting themselves in the shoes of a poor person, they put themselves into the shoes of a rich person and therefore empathize with the rich person's plight more than the poor person's. And the "plight" I'm speaking of here is the tax rate. The "temporarily humiliated millionaire" (THM) commits an error of false equivalence that has him believing a 50% tax rate is an equal "evil" across all incomes. He looks at his bank account of 80 grand or whatever and says, "I wouldn't want the government taking 50 percent of my wealth, so I don't think it's fair I ask Jeff Bezos to give up 50 percent of his wealth."

What they don't understand is that taking away 50 percent from Jeff Bezos doesn't affect him at all. He'll still have 50 fuckin' billion dollars. Taking away 40K off an 80K net worth is a MASSIVE blow. This is what the THMs don't consider, and it has them making false moral equivalences or weakly appealing to relativism.

[Thread]

I wonder what room Katie is being tossed around in

lmcontrollinao!!!

[boutons_deux]

much wealth almost invariably requires unethical and merciless behavior to an extent

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduces-compassion/

https://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-the-7-distinct-traits-many-rich-people-have-in-common-with-psychopaths-2015-3

[midnightpulp]

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-wealth-reduces-compassion/

https://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-the-7-distinct-traits-many-rich-people-have-in-common-with-psychopaths-2015-3

Yep.


Like Gordon Gekko, upper-class people may be more likely to endorse the idea that “greed is good.” Piff and his colleagues found that wealthier people are more likely to agree with statements that greed is justified, beneficial, and morally defensible. These attitudes ended up predicting participants’ likelihood of engaging in unethical behavior.

:madrun "But don't tax them more! They EARNED EVERY PENNY! Bootstraps! :madrun