Austerity Doesn’t Work

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In 2022 Massachusetts raised taxes on millionaires by 4%, and conservatives said the rich would flee. Instead, the state saw a 39% increase in the number of millionaires. The state passed universal free breakfast and lunch for all public school children. It is now one of the least poverty-stricken states in the country. NYC mayoral candidate Mamdani proposed raising taxes on the rich by 2%.

Millionaires like someone has over $1-2 m saved for retirement ?

Does it matter? Someone with a million in retirement is not going to be a drain on the system.

[Anonymous]

We aren't even doing austerity. Austerity for Brits mean you cut services to reduce government borrowing but we are cutting services and increasing government borrowing by $3-4 trillion. It's insanity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please show the math on how you would balance the US budget by only taxing the rich, with zero cuts to spending.

Hint: you can't. There aren't enough rich people.

DP. We know balancing the budget doesn’t work by giving them tax breaks.

Only a MAGA would believe you can pay down your debts even faster by reducing your income.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In 2022 Massachusetts raised taxes on millionaires by 4%, and conservatives said the rich would flee. Instead, the state saw a 39% increase in the number of millionaires. The state passed universal free breakfast and lunch for all public school children. It is now one of the least poverty-stricken states in the country. NYC mayoral candidate Mamdani proposed raising taxes on the rich by 2%.

Millionaires like someone has over $1-2 m saved for retirement ?

And yet stayed in Massachusetts instead of moving to New Hampshire, or Texas, or Florida.

[Anonymous]

Taxing "the rich" accomplishes little, leaving aside the morality of unilaterally taking money from people who are successful to redistribute it to those who are not, and calling that "fair". Countries with high levels of taxation have uniformly lower standards of living along with their more expansive social services - everybody gets to live in a small house or apartment, drive a small car, have small appliances, and have little disposable income. In return, they receive socialized medicine which, by all reports, is better than nothing but not necessarily by much, especially if you need timely or sophisticated care.

Different models and different outcomes. Not everyone wants to live like a typical Swede or Englishman but would prefer instead the opportunity for a better lifestyle, even if that is not guaranteed in a free market economy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Taxing "the rich" accomplishes little, leaving aside the morality of unilaterally taking money from people who are successful to redistribute it to those who are not, and calling that "fair". Countries with high levels of taxation have uniformly lower standards of living along with their more expansive social services - everybody gets to live in a small house or apartment, drive a small car, have small appliances, and have little disposable income. In return, they receive socialized medicine which, by all reports, is better than nothing but not necessarily by much, especially if you need timely or sophisticated care.

Different models and different outcomes. Not everyone wants to live like a typical Swede or Englishman but would prefer instead the opportunity for a better lifestyle, even if that is not guaranteed in a free market economy.

You seem ok with children going hungry so billionaires get a tax break. You are what is wrong with America.

[Anonymous]

In this thread we learned the Free $h!+ 4rmy wants more Free $h!+ !!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taxing "the rich" accomplishes little, leaving aside the morality of unilaterally taking money from people who are successful to redistribute it to those who are not, and calling that "fair". Countries with high levels of taxation have uniformly lower standards of living along with their more expansive social services - everybody gets to live in a small house or apartment, drive a small car, have small appliances, and have little disposable income. In return, they receive socialized medicine which, by all reports, is better than nothing but not necessarily by much, especially if you need timely or sophisticated care.

Different models and different outcomes. Not everyone wants to live like a typical Swede or Englishman but would prefer instead the opportunity for a better lifestyle, even if that is not guaranteed in a free market economy.

You seem ok with children going hungry so billionaires get a tax break. You are what is wrong with America.

No child is hungry because someone developed a successful product or service and thereby became wealthy. Dependence on the government to feed one's children reveals more about the parents of such children than it does about people who have been successful and who don't depend on the government to keep them fed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Taxing "the rich" accomplishes little, leaving aside the morality of unilaterally taking money from people who are successful to redistribute it to those who are not, and calling that "fair". Countries with high levels of taxation have uniformly lower standards of living along with their more expansive social services - everybody gets to live in a small house or apartment, drive a small car, have small appliances, and have little disposable income. In return, they receive socialized medicine which, by all reports, is better than nothing but not necessarily by much, especially if you need timely or sophisticated care.

Different models and different outcomes. Not everyone wants to live like a typical Swede or Englishman but would prefer instead the opportunity for a better lifestyle, even if that is not guaranteed in a free market economy.

"Successful?" A lot of those so-called successful people inherited their wealth, like Donald Trump, who inherited a half billion dollar real estate empire from his father, whereas many of his own genius ventures went bankrupt. Or, they got their wealth from connections, or being in the right place at the right time. Or, from distortions in our whole business model. I happen to not believe that the typical Fortune 500 CEO making $15 million today is that much more productive, profitable or valuable to shareholders than the typical CEO of 1995 making $2.5 million, or for that matter the typical CEO of 1985 making $800 thousand. There has been considerable wage bloat and inflation at the top. CEO pay has increased by more than 1000% in the last 60 years, whereas typical worker pay has pretty much stagnated, a mere 18% (adjusted for inflation) in the same 60 years, despite all of our economic growth. The CEO to worker pay ratio has ballooned from 20x to 290x, and even 600x in some firms. That's not success, that's not earned, it's greed and excess and some of it needs to be given back. And that "opportunity" is, for most Americans, largely a myth these days.

As for standards of living and socialized medicine, Sweden, Germany, Japan, Denmark actually do a great job, in fact better than the US in many areas, and there are few complaints. Stop peddling false narratives. America is only the best if you're already extremely wealthy, apparently like you. But for the remaining 300 million Americans it's a struggle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taxing "the rich" accomplishes little, leaving aside the morality of unilaterally taking money from people who are successful to redistribute it to those who are not, and calling that "fair". Countries with high levels of taxation have uniformly lower standards of living along with their more expansive social services - everybody gets to live in a small house or apartment, drive a small car, have small appliances, and have little disposable income. In return, they receive socialized medicine which, by all reports, is better than nothing but not necessarily by much, especially if you need timely or sophisticated care.

Different models and different outcomes. Not everyone wants to live like a typical Swede or Englishman but would prefer instead the opportunity for a better lifestyle, even if that is not guaranteed in a free market economy.

You seem ok with children going hungry so billionaires get a tax break. You are what is wrong with America.

No child is hungry because someone developed a successful product or service and thereby became wealthy. Dependence on the government to feed one's children reveals more about the parents of such children than it does about people who have been successful and who don't depend on the government to keep them fed.

Dependence on the government to feed one's children reveals that American jobs don't pay living wages, it reveals that we have too much greed in our system with not enough oversight and cost control, which has made things like housing, healthcare costs, utility bills and other things that put that pain on people. Housing costs have spiraled out of control, with investors buying huge amounts of housing stock, new housing construction costs continue to increase disproportionately, and so on, with very little private sector innovation or initiative to drive any of that down.

Likewise healthcare costs, there's no legitimate reason why for example an MRI scan should cost over $1000 in the US when in most other countries it costs less than $150. It's the same piece of equipment, same procedure, same level of training. An appendectomy in the US costs 3-4x more in the US than it does anywhere else. A c-section delivery costs 3-4x more in the US than it does anywhere else. Same with colonoscopies, and many other routine procedures. And why does a prescription for Lantus cost $300 a month in the US when it's only $50 in places like Japan, or why does Xarelto cost $450 in the US and only $90 or less elsewhere, and so on? We lack price controls, we don't negotiate, we have a broken and fragmented healthcare system that is full of rampant inefficiencies that drives bloat everywhere.

You are presuming to lecture from an obvious position of wealth privilege, completely out of touch with what the rest of America is struggling with right now. You'd be better off shutting your mouth and listening more than presuming to try and lecture us with your ignorance.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In this thread we learned the Free $h!+ 4rmy wants more Free $h!+ !!

Stop being an out-of-touch jackass with nothing but your own strawmen. We don't want free shit, we want a fair system, which we don't have.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taxing "the rich" accomplishes little, leaving aside the morality of unilaterally taking money from people who are successful to redistribute it to those who are not, and calling that "fair". Countries with high levels of taxation have uniformly lower standards of living along with their more expansive social services - everybody gets to live in a small house or apartment, drive a small car, have small appliances, and have little disposable income. In return, they receive socialized medicine which, by all reports, is better than nothing but not necessarily by much, especially if you need timely or sophisticated care.

Different models and different outcomes. Not everyone wants to live like a typical Swede or Englishman but would prefer instead the opportunity for a better lifestyle, even if that is not guaranteed in a free market economy.

You seem ok with children going hungry so billionaires get a tax break. You are what is wrong with America.

No child is hungry because someone developed a successful product or service and thereby became wealthy. Dependence on the government to feed one's children reveals more about the parents of such children than it does about people who have been successful and who don't depend on the government to keep them fed.

You mean people like Musk, Thiel, Joe Farrell and the likes. They all received government funding to prop up their businesses getting them to billionaire status.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taxing "the rich" accomplishes little, leaving aside the morality of unilaterally taking money from people who are successful to redistribute it to those who are not, and calling that "fair". Countries with high levels of taxation have uniformly lower standards of living along with their more expansive social services - everybody gets to live in a small house or apartment, drive a small car, have small appliances, and have little disposable income. In return, they receive socialized medicine which, by all reports, is better than nothing but not necessarily by much, especially if you need timely or sophisticated care.

Different models and different outcomes. Not everyone wants to live like a typical Swede or Englishman but would prefer instead the opportunity for a better lifestyle, even if that is not guaranteed in a free market economy.

You seem ok with children going hungry so billionaires get a tax break. You are what is wrong with America.

No child is hungry because someone developed a successful product or service and thereby became wealthy. Dependence on the government to feed one's children reveals more about the parents of such children than it does about people who have been successful and who don't depend on the government to keep them fed.

Dependence on the government to feed one's children reveals that American jobs don't pay living wages, it reveals that we have too much greed in our system with not enough oversight and cost control, which has made things like housing, healthcare costs, utility bills and other things that put that pain on people. Housing costs have spiraled out of control, with investors buying huge amounts of housing stock, new housing construction costs continue to increase disproportionately, and so on, with very little private sector innovation or initiative to drive any of that down.

Likewise healthcare costs, there's no legitimate reason why for example an MRI scan should cost over $1000 in the US when in most other countries it costs less than $150. It's the same piece of equipment, same procedure, same level of training. An appendectomy in the US costs 3-4x more in the US than it does anywhere else. A c-section delivery costs 3-4x more in the US than it does anywhere else. Same with colonoscopies, and many other routine procedures. And why does a prescription for Lantus cost $300 a month in the US when it's only $50 in places like Japan, or why does Xarelto cost $450 in the US and only $90 or less elsewhere, and so on? We lack price controls, we don't negotiate, we have a broken and fragmented healthcare system that is full of rampant inefficiencies that drives bloat everywhere.

You are presuming to lecture from an obvious position of wealth privilege, completely out of touch with what the rest of America is struggling with right now. You'd be better off shutting your mouth and listening more than presuming to try and lecture us with your ignorance.

Spoken like someone who had children they can't afford, and who looks to the government to support their choices instead of to themselves. Why should your bad choices be a burden on the rest of us? Personal responsibility is a concept which evidently eludes you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Taxing "the rich" accomplishes little, leaving aside the morality of unilaterally taking money from people who are successful to redistribute it to those who are not, and calling that "fair". Countries with high levels of taxation have uniformly lower standards of living along with their more expansive social services - everybody gets to live in a small house or apartment, drive a small car, have small appliances, and have little disposable income. In return, they receive socialized medicine which, by all reports, is better than nothing but not necessarily by much, especially if you need timely or sophisticated care.

Different models and different outcomes. Not everyone wants to live like a typical Swede or Englishman but would prefer instead the opportunity for a better lifestyle, even if that is not guaranteed in a free market economy.

You seem ok with children going hungry so billionaires get a tax break. You are what is wrong with America.

No child is hungry because someone developed a successful product or service and thereby became wealthy. Dependence on the government to feed one's children reveals more about the parents of such children than it does about people who have been successful and who don't depend on the government to keep them fed.

Dependence on the government to feed one's children reveals that American jobs don't pay living wages, it reveals that we have too much greed in our system with not enough oversight and cost control, which has made things like housing, healthcare costs, utility bills and other things that put that pain on people. Housing costs have spiraled out of control, with investors buying huge amounts of housing stock, new housing construction costs continue to increase disproportionately, and so on, with very little private sector innovation or initiative to drive any of that down.

Likewise healthcare costs, there's no legitimate reason why for example an MRI scan should cost over $1000 in the US when in most other countries it costs less than $150. It's the same piece of equipment, same procedure, same level of training. An appendectomy in the US costs 3-4x more in the US than it does anywhere else. A c-section delivery costs 3-4x more in the US than it does anywhere else. Same with colonoscopies, and many other routine procedures. And why does a prescription for Lantus cost $300 a month in the US when it's only $50 in places like Japan, or why does Xarelto cost $450 in the US and only $90 or less elsewhere, and so on? We lack price controls, we don't negotiate, we have a broken and fragmented healthcare system that is full of rampant inefficiencies that drives bloat everywhere.

You are presuming to lecture from an obvious position of wealth privilege, completely out of touch with what the rest of America is struggling with right now. You'd be better off shutting your mouth and listening more than presuming to try and lecture us with your ignorance.

Spoken like someone who had children they can't afford, and who looks to the government to support their choices instead of to themselves. Why should your bad choices be a burden on the rest of us? Personal responsibility is a concept which evidently eludes you.

Non-sequitur response. You are not actually responding to anything in the previous post, at all. Where did it say anything about "I can't afford to feed my kids?" You sound like a weird propaganda bot. Either that or you have nothing but a juvenile attitude, a flailing debate style, and a lack of sufficiently robust talking points.

[Anonymous]

Austerity very much does work!!! It's been done several times over the years in multiple countries, but it needs to be done right. The USA is not doing anything of the sort. It's paying the rich with money from the poor. A Reverse Robin Hood.

Austerity measures work to right the national ship when economists guide the process, usually under pressure from the World Bank/IMF or in the case of Greece or other such EU countries, the European Union.

Don't confuse "austerity measures" as announced by various governments, when really they're anything but, and real economic processes to get debt under control, corruption reduced and government finances healthy again. It's VERY painful to live in a country that is undergoing an austerity practice. The average individual will not notice any gains, just pain. The nation will benefit after several years, and the gains will be mathematically measurable, but it's a process that can take a long time.

Maybe you were thinking about autarky? Yeah, that one never works. We're a global economy, for better or worse.