[Silencer]

worry, on 02 June 2017 - 04:32 AM, said:

America's top marginal rate in its economic golden age, the 1950s, was 90+%.

And that was under a Republican president, too.

The biggest issue with going back to that kind of system is money in politics. The second biggest issue is the ease of outsourcing to countries with more corrupt/lower standards/less taxation. That can also be solved in a market like the US with importation taxes and a restriction on passing those taxes on to consumers (i.e. It comes out of the bottom line, not consumers) but it's impractical to do so, likely to the point of impossibility today. The second option is doing it worldwide (or at least having some countries make corresponding legislation that has the same effect to prevent said mass exodus) through the UN. Assuming the UN ever becomes more functional than symbolic.

So yes. Not likely in the modern geopolitical and economic climate. But a hell of a lot more practical in the short term than converting America to socialism, let alone communism.

[worry]

I don't think it's likely or even preferable to go that high (maybe), and obviously it's a different more globalized context, but I also think fears of a mass corporate exodus are a little on the panicky side for a lot of reasons. Middle left social welfare policies, middle left tax policy, middle class standard of living for most (and humane minimum comforts for all) are not nation-breaking. Wealth and opportunity hoarding in the top ranks very much are nation-breaking.

This post has been edited by worry: 02 June 2017 - 05:03 AM

[Andorion]

Silencer, on 02 June 2017 - 04:41 AM, said:

worry, on 02 June 2017 - 04:32 AM, said:

America's top marginal rate in its economic golden age, the 1950s, was 90+%.

And that was under a Republican president, too.

The biggest issue with going back to that kind of system is money in politics. The second biggest issue is the ease of outsourcing to countries with more corrupt/lower standards/less taxation. That can also be solved in a market like the US with importation taxes and a restriction on passing those taxes on to consumers (i.e. It comes out of the bottom line, not consumers) but it's impractical to do so, likely to the point of impossibility today. The second option is doing it worldwide (or at least having some countries make corresponding legislation that has the same effect to prevent said mass exodus) through the UN. Assuming the UN ever becomes more functional than symbolic.

So yes. Not likely in the modern geopolitical and economic climate. But a hell of a lot more practical in the short term than converting America to socialism, let alone communism.

As long as politicians can decide that towing the corporate line is more in their interests than working for the larger interests of the people proposals like this will never take off. This ties directly into two things - political accountability, which is impossible in a gerrymandered system, and severely restricted in a 2 party system, and the political awareness of the populace, which we know to be severely deficient.

[Werthead]

Andorion, on 02 June 2017 - 03:44 AM, said:

EM, what you are saying is that work needs to be controlled by the workers for the common good. In other words the proletariat need to control the means of production. In other words, socialism.

The problem with socialism is what we have seen in every last socialist country - who governs? How are they chosen? To whom are they accountable? What are the checks on their power?

This is the old issue.

Add to this another one - the culture of consumption that has been internalised by the West. We need to be rewarded, we need to splurge, we need conspicuous consumption - and all of this is linked to profit-driven market model. I am not convinced that a socialist model would succeed as the worker inevitably becomes alienated from his labour.

That's the central problem of the left/right wing paradigm. It isn't a line or an arc, but a circle. Go far enough left and you get Stalin and far enough right and you get Hitler, and those guys had quite a mutual admiration society thing going on for a while. Both systems are open to corruption, which the left tries to overcome through bureaucracy and checks and balances (which can then lead to waste and overspending) and the right tries to overcome through market forces (firing those caught engaged in wrong-doing), which doesn't really work either.

The biggest problem looming on the horizon for the work/reward situation is postcapitalism and the oncoming freight train of mass automation on a scale no-one is really prepared for and is coming far sooner than I think even the most cynical people thought (self-driving cars in mass use being maybe 10-15 years away now, rather than the 30+ people were thinking a few years ago). When we lose not just factory workers but bankers, shopworkers, taxi drivers, lorry drivers and call centre personnel to machines, you start getting into that JUDGE DREDD bracket of 90% of people being unemployed because the jobs just don't exist.

Not a problem for this election, even though it does appear that the Conservatives have experimented with the notion by replacing Theresa May with a replicant programmed to only say "Strong and stable" repeatedly.

This post has been edited by Werthead: 02 June 2017 - 11:25 AM

[worry]

On Corby and terrorism: https://sahelblog.wo...-and-terrorism/

Pretty good argument for nuance and accuracy vs. easy answers that are either disingenuous or tragically wrongheaded.

[Werthead]

I'd add to that that making peace with the IRA and the Loyalist terror groups was incredibly difficult. Over 3,000 people had been killed, there was deep-rooted distrust between the parties and the two nations involved (not to mention British distrust of some other countries involved which had allowed the channelling of funds to terror groups, including the USA) and there was active violence going on during the negotiations. Corbyn inviting Sinn Fein officials for negotiations a week or so after the 1984 Brighton bombing was tone deaf and insensitive, but the government ratifying the Good Friday Agreement in the UK-Irish Treaty of 1999 was also heavily criticised, coming as it did weeks after the Omagh bombing carried out by IRA terrorists.

However, the consequence of that has been 20 years of peace (now in jeopardy thanks to Brexit and the reinstatement of the hard border, but that's a different debate). Making peace is a hard road and criticising someone who was willing to walk it a bit earlier than everyone else did remains a bizarre and logically incoherent (if not downright hypocritical) position on behalf of the Conservative Party.

[Tiste Simeon]

Plus, you know, the woman who was actually an active member of the IRA whilst in the Tory party... Who is running for election again...

[Tsundoku]

Tiste Simeon, on 03 June 2017 - 01:06 PM, said:

the woman who was actually an active member of the IRA whilst in the Tory party

Isn't that the very definition of "conflicted"?

[worry]

http://www.telegraph...nister-reveals/

No income tax rises for high earners under Tory government, minister reveals

[Macros]

Hey!
Us rich people don't work for our money, why should we pay tax on it for the plebs???

[Tsundoku]

worry, on 04 June 2017 - 03:15 AM, said:

http://www.telegraph...nister-reveals/

No income tax rises for high earners under Tory government, minister reveals

Heh, I did like this comment:

Revolting Pensioner 4 Jun 2017 4:39AM
Tax the Sick, but not the Healthy !

Tax the Poor, but not the Wealthy !

Tax the Needy, but not Greedy !

Tory Policy 2017.



Pretty much most Australian governments policy too. Conservative OR Labor.

Can't get our rich corporate bastard mates off side can we? Otherwise, who will give us those sweet junket jobs in payment for our stalwart service to capitalism after we retire from politics?

[Werthead]

David Cameron commissioned a report into links between the UK's arms sales to Saudi Arabia and Saudi Arabia's financial support for extremist hate preachers in the UK. Theresa May has suppressed the report and it will not be released until after the election, if ever.

Independent candidate Nicholas Wilson challenged Home Secretary Amber Rudd on this matter at a hustings in their constituency and she responded by censoring him and having the microphone removed from him rather than answering the questions.

[worry]

[Whisperzzzzzzz]

http://www.independe...y-a7771896.html

[EmperorMagus]

Whisperzzzzzzz, on 04 June 2017 - 10:24 PM, said:

http://www.independe...y-a7771896.html

Yes, sure, that's going to work.

Do your best to spread your snooper's charter far and wide while ignoring any solution that might have the smallest chance of solving the problem, Ms. May.

"Regulate the internet" .... when will the illiterate idiots understand the internet can't be regulated?

[Tiste Simeon]

The next couple of days are going to be unbearable. I truly hope Darth Mayder doesn't get in.

[worry]

That seems like almost too much to hope for, but disappointing her w/ a mild victory is a decent consolation prize (not really really, but you take what you can get).

[Tiste Simeon]

Yes even a reduced majority would be a victory of sorts. I want a loud and disruptive opposition if I can't have an outright ousting of the party.

[Khellendros]

Cutting an on average 22-point lead in the polls when the election was announced, to an on average 8-point lead is fantastic work which few expected to happen...but it's still nowhere near close enough. So if the poll average is at all right (and individually they have been all over the place depending on which one you look at), the only outcome is an increased Tory majority. The only hope is that most of the polls have completely ballsed it up.

I expect the Conservatives to increase their majority by 50-100 seats come tomorrow/Friday. I dearly hope I'm wrong, but it's the hope that kills you, eh

This post has been edited by Khellendros: 07 June 2017 - 03:00 PM

[Illuyankas]

Just imagine what would have happened if the fucking Parliamentary Labour Party hadn't stuck the knives in after the Brexit vote. One of the worst political decisions I can remember; obviously orchestrated for months, timed and planned to attempt to be as damaging as possible and insultingly portrayed as spontaneous, and initiated at the single weakest moment the Tories have had in years. The contempt they showed to their voters is enough to prevent me from voting Labour if they oust Corbyn and replace him with another cardboard cutout of a sphincter who took personality lessons from Owen Smith.

Labour would have destroyed this vote if they'd all been on board, given how well Corbyn's done while working against the dickholes in the PLP once the snap election was called. Win or lose he's exceeded my expectations. And I think May would have called a GE even without the 20 point lead when her majority is at risk from the ongoing investigations.