I always found the "would you rather live in the now because of technological advances or in the past" a bit specious because there a lot of people who prefer to live without those technological advances. They're called old people and they tend to be richer than the people who live in the "present" with those technological advances.

Is it that Leftists never had a sense of humor or do they have them surgically removed at the indoctrination centers?

"We're going to make our country rich again; we're going to make our country great again, and we need the rich in order to make the great."

--Don the con

This reminds me of a point made in this article I posted in this thread before, which your post does a very good job of validating:

The #1 rule of income inequality is that you don't talk about income inequality, you're not qualified, no matter your situation.

I mean, I think there's a point to the accusation that Clinton has never seemed to really grasp what it's like not to be rich. I remember some interview with her where she was complaining about being poor after Bill left the whitehouse, wherein poor meant having accumulated 7 figures in debt and needing a bit of time to pay it off from Bill's speaking fees. And it's just like, yeah that's not what it's like to be poor. The sense of entitlement and cluelessness in that interview was palpable.

Now of course I would greatly prefer Clinton as president to Trump, for a whole variety of reasons, but I'm pretty sympathetic to accusations that the Democratic party establishment is also captured in its own way by wealthy interests, and that it's a problem that so many politicians from both parties come from such privileged backgrounds.

Next we are going to hear Junior's meeting was held in a tiny clown car.

its just a general rule, there are ofc many other factors.

I said society is a a tug o war between income inequality and productivity and possibly Sweden found a better one than USA and Canada. It still does have alot of inequality and is a very market friendly country.

Ironically in her Goldman Sach's speeches she came off much more humane. She acknowledged that perhaps because of being around the wealthy and elite for so long she couldn't remember what it was like to be middle class.

Much lower than the US and "market friendly" is a art of phrase based on a select reading of Nordic economies. For instance, most of them have massive sector wide labor unions. Something like that would be unthinkable in the US and would be tantamount to communism, yet the Nordics seem to retain their "market friendly" label.

This is a good point. There is a free market answer as well. It's whole life annuity.

Let's not forget Bernie's three houses as well.

It's one thing to say I'm successful and you can be successful too vs. I'm poor just like you (but I'm not) and you can only be successful if I help you be successful.

The best joke is:

Trump and Clinton are walking down the street and see a homeless person. Trump gives him $10 bucks, says call me tomorrow and I'll put you to work on one of my buildings.

They continue walking and see another homeless person.
Clinton reaches into Trump's pocket, pulls out $100. Gives $20 to the poor guy and keeps $80 as a 'government handling fee'. Then she complains why he doesn't give more.

(I await the Lefties with their inability to grasp humor to twist this one around. As those around here are found of saying - I predicted it, as if that's an argument in favor of intellectual discourse.)

there is very little private regulation in the Nordic countries

If I were to start a business today I would probably prefer to start it in Norway than the US sadly.

Strong Labor unions in private sector is all within a free market system, Im all for labor unions I think they are great. Its when labor unions start up in the public sector that all the problems start.

lol Bernie's three houses

I don't understand why well named pretends like these idiots are being genuine and there's a benefit to granting their false premises and meeting them halfway when the entirety of their desires is to shout down liberals from talking about income equality ever

There's a ton of regulation in Nordic countries you're just dealing with a strong labor union calling the shots rather than the government in more cases than you are in the US. Like I said "free market oriented" is a select reading of how the Nordic countries work.

Fair enough. I am probably guilty of concluding too much from one interview that I didn't like.

I am of the opinion though that it would be good for the political process in the US to represent a wider swath of Americans by economic background, regardless of how well rich politicians believe they are able to empathize. I realize that this is a difficult problem though, given the role of money in elections, and the correlations between social class and education.

Definitely true.

I think I need to add "people who believe income inequality is a problem in the US" to the things that piss me off but shouldn't thread. It seems no matter how hard I try I can never find a logical argument supporting their claim.

Meh. That's a nostalgia thing which is kinda different. If you asked those same 70 year olds whether they'd rather be alive today or like 100 years before they were born they are all going for today I imagine.

Lol at the self-own here. The homeless person who got $20 is still better off than the one who got $10.

I don't think even well named would try to assert that Jigglypuff is genuine.

I was responding to you though, not those idiots :P

Like, the upshot of my posts on this is expressing a desire to see a bit of change in the democratic party establishment. I doubt that jiggy is going to help me with that, but someone like you might?

To me it's like if someone on the right was making some ridiculous tu quoque fallacy about Democrats and the surveillance state, and you happened to post (in response to a liberal poster) that you agree that both Democratic and Republican administrations have gone too far in violating Americans rights in the name of foreign policy or counter-terrorism. And then you mentioned some criticism of something Obama did.

I would think that comment was more directed at the Democrats than the Republicans, and the point would be to get Democrats to think about that issue. The point isn't to excuse anyone's idiocy. I used that example because I have a vague recollection that you care about that issue in particular, and I tend to agree with you about it. I hope I'm not mixing you up with someone else.

look up gini coefficient and crime

https://www.wsj.com/articles/russian...tor-1500063809

I thought you were responding to BS since I didn't think your post entirely made sense in the context of mine - I was jumping to BS' logical conclusion (that Jiggy so nicely filled in with "Bernie's three houses" lol) that they essentially reject anyone is qualified to discuss income inequality. So from that perspective I didn't think a post about Hillary was a response to me.

Your post was perfectly reasonable and I didn't disagree

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer...uspicious.html