Huh? What pickpockets am I defending?

Well, if you understood this, you wouldn't defend them. I won't spoil the fun.

I think it's inaccurate to say that you live better than millionaires did 60 years ago.

Funnily enough, everyone who knows me IRL thinks I'm a conservative because of my attitudes to fiscal matters. I'm a capitalist through and through, but I'm under no illusions that I get to sit on my ass at home pulling in 1k a day because the plebs have to go out and stock shelves and do all sorts of other shitty things for a lot less.

You do know laglight and I are very different kinds of conservatives don't you?

You're all deplorables to me.

J/k - go on then, how?

His morality likely influences his vote more than me. I'm much more of a pragmatist, incrementalist, and realist. I don't trust ideologues. He is definitely more ideological than I. I would vote for a pro-choice candidate, where as he probably would never (I could be wrong about that, but the fact he is rather religious is my reasoning behind that), even though I probably share his conviction about the immorality of abortion. I rely on empirical evidence much more to shape my beliefs, where he likely relies on his morality, which leads us to some of the same conclusions, but for different reasons, but it also does lead to very different conclusions, such as birth control and homosexuality, which I could not be more in disagreement.


I imagine fiscally he'd likely be more closer to a progressive than I. Which is why your quip about him defending the rich is off base.

This is one of the best posts you've made in a long time.

Edit: the quip about defending the rich was actually aimed at you, he just happened to respond to it.

it has nothing to do with memory

it's ignoring reality to fit a narrative

My god, of course this is the case. You thinking your vote matters is the actual dorm room stuff. Naive and straight out of a civics text; nothing to do with the real world. Even the rare few people who enter politics with GOOD intentions are inevitably corrupted by the system. That's what systems do. They incorporate the chaff and burn the wheat.

I highly doubt you would disagree if we were talking about the police, or the male dominated workplace, or whatnot, yet here you are.

Ahahah+1
yeah i got to get his a troll now obv.

And to mention , 1 millions in 1960 was worth over 8 millions of today dollars.
So which million we speak of , today or 60 years ago ?

Would his financial situation most likely not be much better off at the same age ~50yrs ago considering the decades prior to it? Supporting this shift back to the right has undoubtedly left guys like him worse off over the decades since then. There are Tons of them now--just cut loose. Reminds me of that older blue-collar yt guy who lives in the van--and hammers away at supporting republicans lol--it boggles the mind.

You know...there is more than one side to a coin.
Obviously you are right about the bottom but that is not the point !
The point is when your bottom with no wealth EXCEED a large portion of the population, which now is at horrible level.....
If you have a guy like gates that own 1% of the country ok but what happens when he hold half of the wealth ? Same answer ?
So yeah, the wealth can become a good indicator of the shape of the economy to a country.


Why choose between wealth and quality of life when you should aim at both.
It is like choosing between being healthy or rich.
I mean its fine if you think people need to chose one or the other but do not tell me The US a rich country with strong economy if this choice is actually a necessity for the majority of its population......

PS: and that is why taxes is important, the only "wealth" the bottom can have is good public services at the minimum and in the US , they cant even get health care ....
But ho yeah, US economy and Trump are doing great now.....

But its hard for them to realize that when they do not know what happen before them.

In a materialistic sense, I doubt an average household today would trade places with a millionaire of 1960. Even Gates would probably rather reduce to an average income today over rich yesteryear because all he really has is more-better stuff than average, not wholly different stuff preserved only for the rich. Heck, even convicts are living better in that sense than people 100 years ago, aside from the obvious.

Why some might go back is mostly psychological. In other words, it's the intangible things wealth provides, like freedom, security, social status, etc. that's the allure. But even with all that, considering the lack of medical treatments available back then (irrespective of how much money on had) compared to the present (despite how little...) it might not be worth the gambit.

Senators don't represent cities ?

Those unions though......lol.

Systems incorporate the wheat and burn the chaff. You'd just better be sure that you want the type of wheat the system is designed to produce.

The system of capitalism we use always ends with the aristocracy owning everything. That's by design of course. What's not be design is that the system cannibalizes itself. Anyone with a brain know this. Henry Ford understood a hundred years ago.

Again, what is your definition of wealth ?

How does an undocumented hotel maid living below the poverty line because she's underpaid not generate wealth ?

How are exactly does one uncouple standard of living from wealth ?


Also, the concept being presented here is that when there is too great a wealth gap the economy suffers. When you say the wealth Bill Gates has doesn't stop random-schmuckX from generating his own wealth that isn't quite true. It takes wealth to start any sort of business and if you don't have access to that wealth because Bill Gates has it you're stuck.

Also, there's the problem that you'll need other people with wealth to consume your product.
You can find a cure for cancer but if no one has a dollar to buy it from you, you're not going to make much off of it.

Maybe I should have said that I live better than millionaires 600 years ago.

yep and hes lucky we dont take even more than that from him.

really dont care about his vanity projects that likely cause more suffering than good and are massively unethical.

pretty strong pivot after your initial post whining about politicians I guess whining themselves.

Peasants in the 1400s--give your money to the king or die

Peasants today--shut up and take my money m'lord

That's probably a bit more accurate. All the money in the world 600 years ago wasn't gonna cure you of a bad infection.

Like since 60 years ago, you get an extra 10 years of life on average (which is significant!), but being filthy rich 60 years ago versus poor now probably reduces/eliminates that gap anyway. So then there's living in luxury with worse technology then, versus living poor with the internet and sharper TVs now.

The internet is great and all but, without knowing what you were missing out on in the future, living in luxury 60 years ago probably sounds more enjoyable.

Marilyn Monroe and a '55 Spyder sounds pretty pretty good

Until it's not:

Along came a Spyder and picked up a rider
And took him down the road to eternity

Still cool, though.