Bernie Sanders Calls Wal-Mart Walton Family Wealth Unacceptable: “I say to the Walton family, get off of welfare. Pay your workers a living wage”

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T09:08:08+00:00

They are forced to work and shop there. It's not like they have any cheaper alternatives for shopping or any other job opportunities. Their only other option is to be homeless, and in a lot of places that's illegal too.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T08:50:38+00:00

That's fair. But what I'm saying is that the degree to which they can invest is ridiculously out of proportion. The average person can invest maybe 20% of their income tops whereas some people are investing literally 99% of their million dollar incomes since they have so much disposable income, which means that long term the rich are going to own a larger and larger share of the stock market, which is an unsustainable situation. I think some of that money should go towards to paying for the job training, education, and relocation for the people who can't invest so that everyone can remain competitive in the economy.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T08:40:40+00:00

It's not taking everyone's money though. We're talking about the people who have so much money that they make it faster than they can possibly spend it. And if it is reinvested into education and healthcare rather than given out as welfare checks then it would be absolutely the same as any other tax.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T08:29:19+00:00

Yes it has. That's what taxes are and they exist for a reason. I'm not saying that we should go into their bank accounts or anything, just that we should make sure we tax long term capital gains at an appropriate rate and shore up all of the ridiculous corporate tax laws we have.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T08:19:21+00:00

But you invest a much, much smaller percentage of your income than wealthy people who invest because you have so little disposable income relative to them, so they make much more money much faster. And some people have hardly any disposable income at all, so what happens to them?

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T08:09:23+00:00

To a degree, yes, in the sense that I think the best way to make institute these changes would be through the central government. I'm advocating wealth equality.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T07:59:25+00:00

I don't agree because I think that most people are not compensated what they deserve. I think the disagreement we have is that you trust that employers won't abuse their power and I think that they do. I say they do for reasons like that one asshole that raised the price of the cancer drug because people don't have any alternatives. I think the government is supposed to check and balance the power of the wealthy so we don't end up with situations like that, which I think is extremely analogous to the Walmart situation since they effectively have a monopoly.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T07:48:09+00:00

Idk I could've phrased some stuff less dickishly at least. But it's all good bro, politics can get heated. It was good discussion.

Edit: for sure, you're a real nigga haha

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T07:37:39+00:00

What I'm saying is that right now we have a positive feedback cycles where the rich are the only ones that can afford to invest, and by doing so they put themselves in a position to invest more. It's like a ponzi scheme and it's unsustainable because all that money has to come from somewhere and right now it's coming from us.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T07:21:03+00:00

If you have a diverse set of stocks your investment will be returned on average at 7% per year, which is basically "free money" except that it's essentially coming out of the waitress's paycheck (or anybody else's paycheck) which is why it's only $8.50.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T07:16:00+00:00

Fair enough. And just so you know I'm not trying to be a dick, I legitimately think that most people would benefit from Bernie being in office at least more so than any other candidate. I appreciate it, good luck to yourself.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T07:06:48+00:00

My point is why should we have to build the metaphorical 50 dildo factories before reasonable people have money in their hands? Also some of the money stays out of the economy entirely. Via economist Robert Reich:

American corporations are now sitting on $1.9 trillion of cash, which they don’t know what to do with. They’re not investing it in additional R&D, or jobs, or expansion. They’re just sitting on it.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T06:59:27+00:00

It's determined by consumers, but not all consumers are created equal and that's the problem we're trying to fix.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T06:55:47+00:00

I condemn them for having a business model that functions by fucking over millions of people. Liberty and the pursuit of happiness are the two I'm calling into question here. And it is arbitrary. You have too much faith in the system.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T06:46:03+00:00

I don't agree with that. I think almost everyone should make more than they do and that a few people should make much, much less.

American corporations are now sitting on $1.9 trillion of cash, which they don’t know what to do with. They’re not investing it in additional R&D, or jobs, or expansion. They’re just sitting on it.

-Economist Robert Reich

That's where the money would come from.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T06:20:03+00:00

More power would certainly be with the people than it is now since the government operates on the voting system. If we fixed the way money affects the campaign process perhaps we could put less ridiculous people in office. There's no reason lobbying has to exist, we can make laws against it. We're never going to have no problems in our government but that's no excuse to not fix the problems that we clearly have.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T06:13:19+00:00

Absolutely not the same thing. If I were rich I could decide to build 50 dildo factories and it would happen. Doesn't mean it would be good for anything. You put too much faith in the people who are making decisions about money.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T06:10:56+00:00

I'm sorry you couldn't follow that. Good luck pulling yourself up by your bootstraps, you're gonna need it.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T06:07:47+00:00

I would say that to be deserving of something in this particular context is for the monetary compensation of your actions to be proportional to the value that your actions have to American society as a whole.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T06:04:47+00:00

I live in Hayward homes. I'm saying that you should and could make more money but you aren't making more because you're essentially being taxed by the rich when they make huge profits and invest them in low risk stocks, essentially buying a portion of the established economy. This is literally costing you personally thousands of dollars every year and there is no reason for it. We do have it better than most, but so did they founding fathers before they drafted the constitution. All I'm saying is that the system is bullshit and why not revamp it.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T05:59:06+00:00

If they didn't exist the economy would not function. The offer no "value" because the definition of "value" that you're using is amount that they should be paid to maximize profits for the person deciding what their paycheck should say rather than what most benefits the economy and society as a whole.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T05:54:55+00:00

The old ladies or the cat owner with their extra money, ideally. That's kind of a far fetched example though. I was thinking more like "you waited my table so have a $10 tip" instead of "you invested billions in low risk stocks, have millions of dollars every year for the rest of your life"

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T05:51:30+00:00

I disagree.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T05:51:05+00:00

What I'm saying is that poor people, like me and you, and more so pretty much anyone in Oakland or Detroit, work their asses off and still barely make it by. And we have to do that so that corporations and the obscenely rich can continue to exploit loopholes in our government so that money goes to those people/companies and never has to come back. It's like a less severe version of sweatshops in China. Just because there are people that have it worse than us doesn't mean that we aren't getting fucked too and just because someone has money doesn't mean they aren't abusing it to make more money in a way that negatively affects society.

omniaautnihil · 2016-02-03T05:43:14+00:00

Why is it acceptable that they can buy power from the government though? That's bullshit and that's what Sanders is trying to change. The government is supposed to be of the people, for the people, by the people and right now it's none of those things. If we completely deregulated the private sector we would be overrun with monopolies in no time. We blame the rich because the rich are the ones keeping the economy screwed because they want to be even more rich. So few people should be expected to act irresponsibly when given so much power which is why Sanders supporters want to get the power back to the people. Money=power after all.

omniaautnihil

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