exactly how much is a billion dollars?

[jackulator]

I spent a few hours on this - quite an eye-opener:

http://www.jackulator.com/flash/BILLIONS/BILLIONSOFDOLLARS.swf

[Slenkar]

yes it is a bad distribution of wealth but socialism is not the answer,
people already pay too much tax
e.g. property tax is crazy (the idea of a tax on property)

outsourcing has helped the rich get richer while letting the poor stay poor.

The US has to stop trading with China, not only are they commie-u-nists but they are anti-U.S. anti freedom etc.

Their workers dont get fair wages but we still use them. American workers dont have jobs because of trade with China.

[jackulator]

I agree that pure socialism isn't the answer, and that property tax is ridiculous

but simply redistributing SOME wealth does not equal socialism - it's capitalism with built-in protections against the EXCESSES of capitalism - out of compassion for all of those not really benefiting from capitalism

and I agree about China - the same people that spent decades screaming 'communist' anytime anyone talked about rich people sharing are the same people who were so greedy to get in on the booming economy in China that they completely sold out their supposed ideals

of course they weren't really their ideals - they don't give two shits whether China is communist or not - they just don't want anyone to get in the way of them making more money

probably three-quarters of the people in the world would benefit if there was a great infusion of socialism into the capitalist system, yet all the rich have to do to keep it from happening is scream about communism and socialism

but their position is devastated by the fact that they are doing business with China - not to mention these supposed fearers of communism paid for our CIA and our military to go into places like Central and South America and East Asia and murder anyone in the way to install business-friendly leaders and dictators - these people don't fear machine guns and having to show papers at checkpoints - they're all for it if it means keeping poor people out of their gated communities - what they fear is sharing - it's that simple, but they have the rest of us convinved that their sharing means Orwell's 1984... it's bullshit.. they don't fear government control of the masses - they fear government control of how rich they can get

when will poor people wake up and realize they're just being tricked into thinking redistribution of wealth is some insidious evil - conjures up images like Rocky 4 when he gets off the plane in Russia and there's all those guards with machine guns and everything... the people making us all think this are the people who are most benefiting from the inequality inherent in the capitalist system

I have no problem with some people being richer than others - I've long believed that capitalism with some socialist checks on its excesses is the best way to go - that way the people driven to be insanely wealthy can still have $17,000 gold toilets or whatever, but we have to stop believing that the only way to make that possible is for half the population of the world be either starving or on the brink - the trouble with that is, the number of billionaires and millionaires is increasing, but the number of people being reduced to poverty is increasing at a much faster rate to make room for those new millionaire slots - and the same thing is happening to millionaires to make room for the billionaires

it's a zero sum game slenkar - there's only so much to go around - keep consolidating the wealth of the world into fewer and fewer hands and eventually we're gonna have some twisted version of the Eloi and the Morlocks - we'll have 99% of the world doing all the work and starving, and a very tiny super super rich livin large on the back of all that misery

so how do you prevent that from happening - Obama is raising tax on the folks making more than $250,000 a year -- by something like 3.6% -- in my opinion it's not enough, but even if they raised it 10 or 15% it still wouldn't be 'socialism'

how could you come away from that little presentation I made and say, "yes it is a bad distribution of wealth but socialism is not the answer"

sorry - it just sounds like a knee-jerk response man - but I'll give you the benefit of the doubt and ask what IS the answer? what would we have to do differently than we're doing today to produce less inequality -- and that doesn't in any way involve anything that could be construed as socialistic?? I just don't get it. I wonder how many people understand what the word actually means.

I find it hard to believe that any compassionate person could be confronted by data like that in my presentation and come away from it just as ardent about 'not socialism' as they were before - the whole point of the thing was to show that we're a long long long long motherfucking way from ACTUAL SOCIALISM

redistribution of SOME wealth is not socialism - but it will make a difference in the lives of BILLIONS of people - so why not do it? how could the people on top not want to do it???

to paraphrase something my mother said when I was talking to her about all of this, "The way it is now -- it's like you're a farmer and you've got tons of land and food and animals and everyone around you is eating dirt."

you've gotta be pretty heartless and cynical not to want to make a few tiny sacrifices if doing so could help all of those people not have to eat dirt - what I find amazing is that the strongest supporters of the super rich not having to share are some of the poorest people on the planet

it's just sad, because all of this means very few people, including the poorest among us believes they have a RIGHT to anything better - that simply by virtue of being a human being they have a RIGHT to be able to eat decent, healthy food, have warm clothes to wear, and have at least a modest, comfortable and safe place to sleep, and if they get sick they have a RIGHT to be taken care of by a competent doctor -- that their survival should not depend on whether they have 'health insurance'

I made the presentation after watching 60 Minutes last night - there are people dying all over America simply because they do not have health insurance - and this is one of the richest countries in the world - something needs to change - FAST

so all the people out there who believe in 'not socialism', whatever that is, need to tell us what they think should be done to make things more equal -- what should we do man?

[jackulator]

you know - I'm sorry about this slenkar

I've got a long-standing rule that the subjects of politics and religion are generally inappropriate in most social settings because they tend to offend and distance people from one another. Even though I think this political stuff needs to be discussed I don't think jackulator.com is the place to be doing it. I only posted the presentation here because I was surprised by the numbers I found and thought other people might get something out of it. And I was happy with my creation and wanted to show it off. But I opened the can of worms, so this is my fault. It's obvious you and I disagree on some things, and I don't know how much discussion it would take to have one of us persuade the other, but I'd like to try to clarify part of my position.

To be honest with you, I don't put much faith in redistributing wealth through tax increases either. I have little confidence in the leadership of either party, so even though I think the conservatives are in bed with business to the detriment of just about everyone, the Democrats haven't done much good with the tax increases we've had in the past and I don't expect that will change much.

What we really need is some agreement that the distribution of wealth is shockingly unfair. Without agreement we'll just have more of the same. The party running the country will decide how we proceed. And that hasn't really worked all that well in the past.

If we can get everyone to agree that the distribution of wealth is a problem and that citizens should at least have some minimal rights to health, safety and security, we might then be able to find a way to redistribute wealth in a way that Republicans and conservatives in general can go along with.

I think what this boils down to is that the people on the right need to separate two issues. They believe the government should not be involved in business, but I think there are two reasons why:

1. A democratic nation can benefit greatly from having entrepreneurs and folks with big ideas, and imposing restrictions is undemocratic and stifles progress.

2. Regardless of the scale or of how temporarily, allowing government intervention in business negatively affects the personal finances of the wealthy.

The first idea is a philosophical one and not one without merit. The second idea is the real problem. The rich are far more able than the poor and middle class to steer legislation (or a lack of legislation) that favors their personal financial success. Given how many more rich people are Republicans than Democrats, in my opinion there is a clear conflict of interest here. But I think if right-wingers separated the two ideas that underpin their belief that government should stay out of business they would recognize it is the second idea that is killing this country. Approaching the problem of income inequality from the perspective of only the first idea, I bet most conservatives would agree that it is only the ideal, and that at this point some regulation and redistribution of the wealth is necessary, even though it goes against what they prefer. Sure, in the past the country as a whole has benefited from big ideas from business and from capitalism, but when capitalism itself is destroying the country you have to be willing to compromise on the position at least temporarily until the economy gets going again.

The way Republicans are behaving right now you'd think the crisis was that business is too controlled by the government. The real problem is that we don't produce anything as a nation anymore. And the rich are not investing in this nation the way they once did. So sticking fervently to the precept that government should not involve itself in the affairs of business out of principle alone is difficult to understand given our current situation. I believe the reason so many on the right continue to do so in the face of our economic crisis is not because they believe in idea 1 the way they believe the sun rises in the east, it's because they recognize that allowing even temporary government intervention will cost them money personally. I believe they are using their belief in idea 1 to mask what is really just greed and selfishness. Approaching the problem from a purely rational standpoint it's easy to recognize that redistribution of wealth is badly needed right now. And the only way to have the input of both parties in coming up with a solution to the problem is for us to have at least some agreement on the issue.

If the right-wingers would stop fighting so hard to preserve the wealthy's right not to share, they might recognize that Obama's plan for pulling us out of this hole is actually quite ingenious. It kills three birds with one stone. Investing in new green technology will help reestablish the U.S. as a technological leader and a producer, create jobs and begin to release us from dependency on foreign oil. But all we've seen from the right is obstruction. They will probably continue obstructing, attacking and just plain lying about Obama and his leadership until they once again control things politically, which is really unfortunate because things are pretty dire right now. If they refuse to recognize even now that too much wealth is concentrated into too few hands given how bad things are these days, they probably never will.

And unfortunately, as intelligent as it is, Obama's plan is likely to produce slow, steady results. The length of time it will take to start pulling the country out of this mess is probably greater than one or even two terms. If in the meantime Republicans can convince a majority of us that Obama's plan is a failure they will be able to step in before it has a chance to reach fruition, and undermine any progress that has been made, only to put forth more tax cuts for the wealthy and corporations, more privatization and more deregulation. And of course, even if his plan does start to work before they can regain control of Washington, the right will simply take the position that it was some cyclical market correction or even their own leadership that fixed the problem. It's a really terrible strategy, and one that does none of us any good. My only hope is that Obama can have enough success quickly enough to show most Americans that his approach is working.

But as I said before, I do not believe that simply raising taxes is the answer. We need to find ways to redistribute wealth that both sides can agree on. I believe Obama's approach is exactly what we need. Since the government is the only party able and willing to do so, it will invest in the creation of a new industry until business leaders recognize that it is in their own best interest to do the same. Once they begin investing in America again jobs will be created and everyone will have more money. When the poor and middle class have more money they buy things, and the economy as a whole benefits. Obama's approach is fair, reasoned and likely the only way to get everything moving again. Once we get back on our feet I have no problem reverting back to the position that government involvement in business should be avoided unless absolutely necessary.

But we have to be honest with ourselves in the future and have a little more foresight. If we're honest, most people will agree that left to their own devices investors will do just about anything if they can get big returns on their money. But we can't allow greed for short-term profits to cloud our judgment the way it did when the financial services industry was deregulated.  If influential people had not brought about the deregulation of the sector to make a quick buck things wouldn't be nearly as bad as they are now. If in the future the government is the only party capable of showing restraint and good judgment, then regulation is necessary. Like it or not we have to be honest with ourselves about that.

I just wish we could spend less time fighting over the issue because while we do so the economy is falling apart all around us. We could really use some more cooperation from the right. Without it recovery will take much more time, and too many of us are struggling right now to have these kinds of philosophical arguments -- at least in Washington.

[Sir? what do ya think?]

don't know why anyone would want to be so rich that they could never spend everything and also watch idly while others remain poor.

Sir evelyn rothschild is apparently the richest man on the planet, nobody really knows how much money his family has, but the family history doesn't look too good as to how they came to be so wealthy.
I don't care how rich these fuckers are, wealth has already gone too far when one person has everything while others are left with nothing.
http://www.mega.nu:8080/ampp/rothschild2.html

Sure, we'd all like to have a fancy car, or maybe a large entertainment system or whatever, but most honest and decent people are happy having a normal home and an honest pay.
Reallocation of wealth is necessary and i hate when people use the "they've earned it" crap, most rich people either inherit, cheat or just get lucky and afterwards put in little to no effort to help others, from that point on all they think about is how to increase those figures.

Even having said that, you can't just simply raise taxes and hope that sorts it, never works

[Slenkar]

I think government interference did cause this crisis, not letting oil companies drill in certain areas raised the gas prices and Barney Frank was key in causing the housing bubble by forcing Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to loan to poor people.

http://www.jrtelegraph.com/2008/09/barney-frank-go.html

[jackulator]

I think government interference did cause this crisis, not letting oil companies drill in certain areas raised the gas prices and Barney Frank was key in causing the housing bubble by forcing Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae to loan to poor people.

http://www.jrtelegraph.com/2008/09/barney-frank-go.html

If Barney Frank somehow 'forced' the banks to violate their own good lending practices then there is no defense for that. But I will say there is some merit in trying to make sure banks know that they won't be able to not lend to people simply because they're black. After reading the article I believe that was the motivation. And I would think that the readership of a periodical aimed at Russian Jews would be able to understand how insitutional racism affects people. But all of that aside, to blame the state of the economy on Barney Frank is more than just a little silly.

And certainly you're not underplaying the role of deregulation of the financial services sector.

[Slenkar]

well according to the article the bad lending goes back to the carter admin who accused banks of racism.

A manual issued by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston advised mortgage lenders to disregard financial common sense. "Lack of credit history should not be seen as a negative factor," the Fed's guidelines instructed. Lenders were directed to accept welfare payments and unemployment benefits as "valid income sources" to qualify for a mortgage. Failure to comply could mean a lawsuit.

[kmj2318]

pretty cool, i have something saved on how much 1 trillion is http://www.zee.me/blog/2009/03/what-does-one-trillion-dollars-look-like/

but i don't like how they vilify billionaires, implying that they should give money to every single person just because they can

[jackulator]

pretty cool, i have something saved on how much 1 trillion is http://www.zee.me/blog/2009/03/what-does-one-trillion-dollars-look-like/

but i don't like how they vilify billionaires, implying that they should give money to every single person just because they can

great link man - that one illustrates what a trillion dollars much more effectively than the one I did, and mine only goes to a billion

even though I don't know if people can 'feel' how much a pallot of $100 million is - using 3D instead of 2D is a smarter approach than the one I took

but uh - I don't believe there's any vilification in implying that a billionaire should share his money just because he has so much of it, because it's a simple fact that there's only so much to go around, and when there are so many people who can't afford to even buy food it seems like a no-brainer to me

in a sense I think it's actually cruel to even BE a billionaire - but I'm not sure where you draw the line - I guess for me the line is if everyone in the world has at least enough to eat healthy food and sleep someplace warm and safe, and can be treated by a good doctor when they are sick, and can get a decent education, then everyone else can have as much money as they want - being rich should only mean you have access to luxuries - not to basic things like health care - those aren't luxuries in my book - they're things every human being has a right to

yes, it's a moral standpoint, but it's my position