Here we have exhibit A on why the social contract in the US is dead. Instead of using politics to better your physical situation you use it as therapy.
I'm not virtuous enough to push for higher taxes and more welfare? By shutting me down you'll have even more poor to celebrate! Isn't virtue signalling great?
>However, in the present day, I don't think it is just the 1% who are against a corporate tax increase.
As I said: I would happily pay 80% taxes if I knew that when I needed it most the welfare state would have my back, but I know that it won't. The rentiers have shown time and time again they would rather destroy the economy than allow everyone to have the luxury of stability.
The top 19% do not trust government because for the last 40 years government has been hijacked and made to work against the people.
A perfect example: would you support a 30% hike to pay for Trumps border wall? If not, why are you against tax increases?
Have a look at the period 1950-1970. If we were to tax corporations at the same rate as they were in that golden period we would not have a national deficit.
>Where's the evidence that this solidarity ever existed?
And that's how solidarity dies. Are we going to start playing the game of "you're not oppressed enough"?
Why not start with the $30k a year household:
Hot water? What a luxury! Half the world can't afford drinking water.
Car engine? They can use a bicycle like they do in India.
Utility bills? Just bring in some chickens into your home to warm it up.
With enough will and prudent planning you can make a dollar a day stretch much further than you could imagine. Just like you are suggesting I spend my life figuring out ways to live better in a system broken by design.
In a sane country I wouldn't have to worry about insurance and the people making a tenth less than me wouldn't worry about cars, boilers or bills, because there would be public options for all of those things.
I work in a wholesale brokerage. I try and manage the risk exposure so we won't go bankrupt tomorrow because someone couldn't tell the difference between 0 and O on their screen. I have seen trades worth hundreds of millions fail and bankrupt the people making them.
The problem isn't people not saving or investing the problem is an insane system kept afloat by greed, ignorance and fear. "Security"? what good is having paper when no one wants to buy it? October 29, 1929 is a day my grandmother remembers well and one I dread we will see again.
Government is the only insurance scheme large enough to protect us from ourselves.
I was wondering how long it would take for the attack on the solidarity of the precariat:
>The rhetoric of “We are the 99 percent” has in fact been dangerously self-serving, allowing people with healthy six-figure incomes to convince themselves that they are somehow in the same economic boat as ordinary Americans, and that it is just the so-called super rich who are to blame for inequality.
7 months after the election is actually quite long.
Here is what makes me in a $300k a year household and the $30k household on the other end of town the same:
>Your home is regarded as a model home, your life as a model life. But all this splendor, and you along with it... it's just as though it were built upon a shifting quagmire. A moment may come, a word can be spoken, and both you and all this splendor will collapse.
The rich cannot be ruined. I can. If I was to be fired from my job it would be a minor disaster, if I was to get an incurable disease I would slide down the income scale without a break.
I would happily pay 80% taxes if I knew that when I needed it most the welfare state would have my back, but I know that it won't. The rentiers have shown time and time again they would rather destroy the economy than allow everyone to have the luxury of stability.
That is why I am a socialist and I know I'm not the only one.
Who is "they"? The people who own the top slots of the news today aren't the ones who did 6 months ago. The sites I was running are making less than $20 a month, at their best they were making $500 a day (lasted all of one week during the primaries) and even then I make more at my day job. I'll never do it again because I have better options, but it was an education to see my bullshit stories picked up by top shelf news organizations.
How do you propose to stop people like me from taking over the news? Rely on someone like Murdoch to keep us safe from fake news? Have an official news network from the US government that only publishes verified news? One from Google? Facebook? Comcast?
Let the bullshit bubble and froth, it's sound and fury signifying nothing. Any cure I've ever herd put forward is worse than the disease.
As someone who has been on the publication side of digital media: Never ascribe to propaganda what you can explain by greed.
News is fundamentally broken, all those sites linking to each other are probably doing it to increase the "trending" part of the news which will push all of them up the google rankings.
The reason why Russians, and Eastern Europeans in general, are more highly represented as owners of these places is because the cost of living is so low there. That you make $2,000 from add revenue in the US would mean you can afford to eat out a few more times a month. When you can do the same thing in a country where this is double the average wage you can spend all your time doing it and be better off than if you tried doing anything else.
Kettle meet pot.