Pretty much.
http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/
Estimated investment needed by 2020:
$3,600,000,000,000
Conservative rebuttal that you will like:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/paulrode...e-than-europe/
and why that rebuttal is stupid and misleading, in at least one area, and I will leave a bunch of other faults out:
http://goeurope.about.com/od/europea...arison-map.htm
You will have to read both to figure out what I mean. Feel free to post more bull out of that forbes article that you think are valid points, and I will be happy to trash it for the bull it is. What you ers pass off as unquestionable dogma can be shockingly idiotic at times, and this guys lame attempt at countering the argument for more infrastructure spending is very representative of that.
Do you feel lucky, punk, well do ya? Go ahead, make my day.
Nope. Sorry if actually sacrificing something for greater good is alien to you.
We have become a nation of selfish, narrow minded s. Previous generations sacrificed their lives for the common good, and we about not having enough money for $10 cups of coffee.
There's a big world outside of your self-centered myopia.
Spending other people's money is very easy to do.
From each according to his ability, to each according to his need, right?
The good ole days of racism, misogyny, ethnocentrism, and other core liberal values ...
After 30 years of VRWC ing up America, it's actually much easier for them to deny you money (lowered salary + benefits), and to extract your wealth.
So you didn't actually read what I posted, or take a few minutes to get the gist of how wealth in this country is actually distributed?
If you are asking if I am in favor of a progressive tax system, then the answer is yes, and so are you in all likelihood. If that is settled, perhaps we should talk about something constructive.
Sorry, I don't think those are worthwhile things to strive for, either. Another point we both agree on.
Do you think that self-sacrifice for the greater good is a virtue worth having in yourself?
I read and watched everything. Doesn't change my point.
What would you suggest we discuss?
No, I don't. I think that's rife with problems and philosophically bankrupt.
What point were you making exactly?
I would suggest we discuss how to address the wealth inequality in our country.
Do you think something might be amiss when 3M people own almost six times more wealth than 240 million people?
That does not strike you as a problem?
I know you pretty much hold a solid belief in " the poor", but I find it hard to believe that the 240 million people who have so little are all useless s, including yourself.
What problems?
How so?
Who decides what sacrifice from whom?
Bankrupt because I don't believe in living to provide for the mass of human filth that is the poor.
That it's easy to call for others to spend money on your behalf; that it's easy to spend others money; that there is a disparity in what you think is your own personal monetary "sacrifice" compared to others.
Maybe wealth inequality is a problem. Maybe it isn't. Everything you've posted pressuposes that it is without providing a reason why.
What makes you think I have so little?
Not having enough living wage jobs are a problem, but not the root problem...
Why do you presume "we" can do anything about wealth inequality? What prescription would you suggest? The most common is taxing the wealthy, but that, it seems to me, does not decrease the inequality, it just give the government more money. You could confiscate the person's wealth (Robin Hood Style), and give it to the needy (this would, obviously have to be something other than an income tax) - and that would provide a temporary lift to the poor, but, as the saying goes, you've just given a guy a fish, not taught him to catch em.
I dont' necessarily think it is a problem. The Soviet Union had very low wealth inequality; yet the poor there were more numerous, and living in worse conditions than our poor today. The poor in China today have a living standard that would be unthinkable here. It does not matter how much the rich have; there is not finite amount of wealth. The biggest problem we have right now is HOW the rich are getting rich - the financial sector; wealth manipulation, NOT wealth creation. We need to raise the capital gains tax to equal other income taxes. Remove the incentive to make money only with money, and not with ingenuity & innovation. We need modern industrialists; creating businesses, getting rich, but also creating good jobs. No time to flesh out the thoughts, but you get the gist...
I think we can collectively decide what cons utes sacrifice. I would not, though, quantify higher capital gains taxes on that massive pile of money as much of a "sacrifice".
240 million people are filth?
Define "poor".
When I see people use such debate tactics, it comes across to me like a child crying because the sibling got more of something, or that someone else's child has something the parent cannot or will not buy.
Childish jealousy...
Wealth isn't a zero sum game. Do you believe that when someone has more, it's because they took a larger share of something? What about the times that the whole is larger because wealth was created by these people at the top?
Yes.
We have too many people who don't strive to be wealthy.
Not saying everyone can be, but seriously. Too many people simply don't apply themselves. Then lock and connections count too. They are not the problem however. Personal motivation is. The only problem I see that the government could fix if they desired to is the trade imbalance. That is the root cause of our labor needs and wages.
You're lucky this isn't 1919 RG, or the government would have silenced you.
Who is the collective we? Do we hold a plebiscite? Or is it our elected officials? More to the point, how is that decision made, i.e., what are the mechanics of it?
It's well and good to speak of some abstract "social-compact" about what level of monetary sacrifice each citizen makes. I'm much more interested in hearing about how the sausage is made.
Why wouldn't you classify higher capital gains tax as a sacrifice? If I earn money, decide to invest it strategically in certain stock, why should I be penalized for that? More to the point, why are other's en led to benefit from my sound investments?
Poor = people on the government dole (i.e., TANF and SNAP) = filth
More to the point, why is wealth inequality bad?
Sure it's an easy call to spend other's money. It is also an easy call to catch a baby falling from a 2nd story window. It is very easy to take a higher % of high capital incomes, given how those incomes are often 1,000 to 10,000 times larger than what is required to ssustain a family of four for a year.
Easy or hard, is beside the point, what matters is what is right and moral.
It is a problem, because it takes away personal investment in society, and contributes to the very listnessness and hopelessness that causes people to behave the way you so despise.
Shiller, an economist famous for having warned about bubbles in technology stocks and housing, said inequality has been worsening for decades. He said he supports having a contingency plan in place now to raise taxes on the rich if inequality gets worse.
"The most important problem that we are facing now today, I think, is rising inequality in the United States and elsewhere in the world," Shiller said.
It becomes bad, because as wealth and income become more concentrated, the economy suffers from much slower growth, and you get cycles of poverty, and more human misery in general.
If, though, you don't care about human misery, I guess that isn't a problem. Are you a sociopath? I would assume not. I don't know how much or how little wealth you might have, but am merely playing the odds. Feel free to put yourself in whatever category you want. That category will still have only a tiny % of the wealth the richest .4% of the population has.
I agree. Thankfully this isn't 1919.
It isn't childish jealousy.
It is an acknowledgement of the fact that it is very cheap to provide for sustainment of human life. Food, shelter, clothes, medicine. Once you meet a certain threshold, each new dollar of income spent simply buys better upgrades.
Past that, the hyper-wealthy have more than even they can spend on such things. They have, in essence absorbed so much capital wealth that it is really stagnating the economy.
If your moral system is predicated on doing as little harm as possible to people with whatever system you choose to employ, larger progressive taxes on such large incomes are pretty logical choices.
What about the people not on the government dole?
The working poor and middle class beyond that have almost no wealth ac ulated either, as the video noted. The bottom 60% own almost nothing. Sorry.
Are they filth too?
What do we do with this filth?
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