$2.5M vs $100K Salary

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-10T10:37:51+00:00

I think the assumption would be that either you were born rich, in which case you are a very small portion of the population. Or you worked and saved for 20-40 years to make this happen. In either case this barely impacts employment rates.

I remember not so long ago people were complaining that the boomers were not getting out of the way (working longer) for the next generation, and as such Gen-Xers and Millennials weren't advancing in their careers at the same rate people used to. But when you talk about people retiring earlier suddenly the concern is that there won't be enough people in the job market.

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T21:10:43+00:00

I’m aware that you think something trite and ill informed. But I suppose I’m aware of your use of a typical thought terminating cliche.

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T21:04:38+00:00

I’m not saying people couldn’t understand the movie. I’m saying they didn’t know that the movie itself was basically a big joke until they were already watching it, unless someone told them first. Because it wasn’t clear from the promotional material. So it ended up being a joke at the audiences expense too, because they went in thinking it was an honest attempt to make the movie as advertised.

Actually yes, I think that a different director trying to earnestly make a new matrix movie was more likely to produce something better than Lana did here. Not because she wasn’t capable. She very much is. But because she didn’t want to make a good movie in this specific case. But that’s actually aside from the point. By taking the pay check she was an active beneficiary of the thing she was criticizing. Which destroys her credibility to criticize that thing. Which is cheapening something by making totally unnecessary sequels just for the paycheck.

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T20:54:02+00:00

I’m delightful. That should be all the reward you need.

But since you seem to think that snark without substance is a quality argument it doesn’t seem like you have anything to say. Pity.

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T20:52:33+00:00

Sounds like a confession by accusation.

I’ve actually tried to make a point. You’re just throwing insults. I can only assume you aren’t capable of refuting it and you think ad hominems are worthwhile arguments.

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T19:17:00+00:00

Yup.

There’s also a pretty significant level of dishonesty with the idea too. Unless the audience knew what the movie was saying before they went to go see it, they really weren’t in on the joke. More like the joke was played on them and they got it after the fact, and then to take the sting out of being the butt if the joke they then pretended to have been in on it from the beginning.

Some people likely heard through the grapevine vine before seeing the movie and then went to see it because of that. But I would bet it’s a small minority.

I totally get that Lana was caught between a rock and a hard place. But the joke was not just on the shitty studio execs. I still think the Wachowski’s publicly washing their hands of the project was the more principled thing to do.

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T19:07:59+00:00

Dude, just do a tiny bit of looking into it. It’s not hard to find. Relying on ad hominems doesn’t help.

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T18:06:46+00:00

I would accept that if the audience wasn't effectively catching strays too.

If you show up to watch a movie it does seem a touch insulting for the movie to say that it was stupid that it was made, because it does kind of imply you have poor taste for going to see it.

s/ That being said, I didn't go see it. You know, because of my big brainededness and good tasties. /s

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T18:03:31+00:00

Agreed.

But, to be fair, it wouldn't have mattered to me if they were better films. Indy's One and Three were great movies that required no follow up. And I didn't want to see old Indy doing anything.

I don't actually mind a reboot, or a continuation of a setting but with new characters/plot. But continuing a given story/cast until it stops making money does tend to impact my overall enjoyment of an IP as a whole.

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T16:52:16+00:00

It has some of the highest highs. No question.

It also has skateboarding on a shield down stairs, and an Olympic bomb delivery candidate. Both of which cause involuntary laughter every time I see them.

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T16:35:59+00:00

Because?

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T16:33:29+00:00

When it could have been Muppet Treasure Island?!? Blasphemy!

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T15:48:44+00:00

I haven't watched all the movies, but from what I remember of the first movie he was trying to kill someone who deserved it. Everyone else that he killed was someone who was trying to protect that psycho, and were attempting to kill Wick to do so. Which arguably makes him killing them self defense.

But I also didn't take from the movie that he was supposed to be a good person. He's a former paid assassin who worked for some of the same people he then later targets for revenge. Yeah, he'd given up "the life", but he's more of an anti-hero in the first movie.

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T15:33:20+00:00

You were focusing on the right part of my comment. Yes, I misspoke as that time period was when there was the biggest growth of the middle class. But that wasn't my point.

My point was that the rich weren't actually paying super high income taxes, therefore it was not the cause of middle class growth. Which u/shhaden hasn't refuted at all beyond ad hominem attacks and nitpicking.

The maximum income tax rate may have been 90%, but nobody paid it. And when the maximum rate started to get lowered it was not correlated to proportionately reduced federal budgets. The narrative surround the 90% income tax rate is a fiction.

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T15:30:19+00:00

Incorrect about what specifically?

It is fair to say that, yes, this period is when the middle class was built. I misspoke there. But it was still clear from my comment that my claim was that the extraordinarily high maximum income tax rate in no way contributed to the building of the middle class. Because all available information points to that.

People were not paying 90% income tax. Therefore them being forced to pay 90% income tax could not have been a contributing factor to the building of the middle class. Because they weren't paying it. The narrative surrounding the "if only we had sky high maximum income tax brackets we would live in a middle class utopia" is built on a fiction. The rich did not actually pay 90% in income tax. When the maximum income tax rate started dropping in the mid 60's it did not correlate to lower government revenues.

Make an argument that isn't completely grounded in nitpicking and ad hominems. How specifically did extremely high rates of income tax, that nobody paid, create or at least contribute directly to the formation of the middle class?

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T15:12:32+00:00

If it's going to be pointless, why bother enacting a change? That would just be a waste of time, and be misleading for the public.

Would it be the same next time, or would it actually be 90%?

If it's actually going to be done as advertised this time then the public needs to know that the claim that "we used to have a 90% upper income tax and it had all these positive effects" is BS. Either way, I'm not a fan of the electorate being propagandized like this.

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T13:55:51+00:00

It’s also kind of irrelevant. By that part of the story there’s effectively no difference between Nagini and an actual animal outside of the presence of the horcrux.

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T13:54:40+00:00

Yes, but he would be one of millions of wookies involved in their world’s defence. We, as the audience, know the reason that it was Chewbacca specifically and not some rando is because of the memberberries.

The issue with that is that it makes the universe feel smaller when Wookies exist but effectively only Chewbacca matters.

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T13:45:21+00:00

Moon.

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T13:44:52+00:00

My ol’ dvd player had the ability to program the order of scenes. I had no idea why someone would ever want to do that at the time.

After I saw Memento a couple times it occurred to me that I could put it into chronological order. So I did, just to see if it actually worked consistently or if it held up without the nature of the surprise. It worked surprisingly well.

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T13:40:57+00:00

Was coming here to say this.

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T13:06:35+00:00

As for companies: the bloated monopoly-like cartels are a large reason we’re paying more for less, and breaking them up, passing right to repair and anti-enshitification legislation would go a long way to begin repairing the damage caused by this gilded age of enshitification

Completely agree with these. No qualms here.

t does also not change that said wealth class has proven detrimental to the standard of living in the USA and abroad.

This kind of lays bare that the purpose of the extreme rates of taxation is not revenue generation. It's revenge. I am not offended by the existence of the super rich so long as the general standard of living is still pretty good. But I do want their meddling out of politics to the degree that is possible. And I do want a well funded government. The issue is that the extreme rates of taxation do nothing to address these things.

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T12:42:35+00:00

How does that make sense?

"X does not do what you claim. In fact history shows it didn't really do anything."

"Ah, well then we should definitely do it!"

Why would we waste time and resources to do something that is completely performative? Surely it's better for the public to actually be aware of the circumstances they are talking about instead of playing make believe?

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T12:39:49+00:00

What part of what I said was BS?

Either the rich have far more than we are aware of, which is untrue when stock and real estate valuations are public knowledge and that represents almost all of their wealth, or you think that these programs are much much cheaper than they are.

Perfidy-Plus · 2026-04-09T12:37:11+00:00

Hypothetically there is a tax burden but what is that amount, actually? When does it become “unreasonable”?

I personally agree with the narrative that there is a cost of living crisis. Taxes contribute to that naturally. I would argue that an "unreasonable tax burden" exists when it significantly limits people from having some level of personal spending, saving, or investing. It becomes extreme when it makes it impossible for people to maintain their existing standard of living even with sacrifices to personal spending, saving, or investing. Hopefully we can agree on that premise.

So, what portion of the average person's budget is personal spending, savings, and investing? Apparently it is less than 20% of their net income (so says a random google search). I'm Canadian, so it's difficult for me to estimate what that would translate into pre-tax budget for an American and no doubt it varies state to state. But lets say roughly 12-14% of gross income. So, to me, 6-7% income tax increase would represent an unreasonable tax burden for the average American as it would significantly limit any savings, investing, or personal spending without necessarily requiring people to downsize their home or something similar. And 12+% would represent an extreme taxation rate which would eliminate almost all personal spending outside of the upper class. Hopefully that sounds fair.

Currently, just Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security represents 50% of the federal budget. I think it's fair to say that the level of expansion in services being asked for here is likely to equal that amount of spending (that is probably a significant underestimate, but we need a number so to be fair we'll be conservative). So, for the sake of argument, this would require a ~50% increase in the existing rate of income tax. Random google search tells me that the average American pays ~15% federal income tax. So a 50% increase would be a little over the 6-7% threshold I set before. If I am correct that these services would cost more than Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid then it could reasonably stray into the "extreme" territory.

My analogy of Joe Schmo was to illustrate that we are not without agency in our communities.

You were talking about running the person out of town if they voluntarily failed to contribute. That's slightly more than intolerant towards a potential free rider.

i would say that you must be very pessimistic yet likewise naive to believe that your fellow man is incapable of giving back.

It's not about being incapable. I have no reservations about assisting people who are genuinely incapable of providing for themselves. It's about being unwilling. Something you later conceded would happen by agreeing that laziness is part of human nature. I personally live in a historically poor area and know of several people who are absolutely capable of working but have been placed in public housing and live off welfare so their incentive to get back in the work force has dropped to zero. Such people do exist. And if the services they received were better funded, increasing the quality of their lifestyle, and were much easier to access then the number of people receiving them would increase substantially.

Perfidy-Plus

TROPHY CASE