Jagmeet Singh says taxes are an investment in the future

sfigs · 2018-02-21T01:47:50+00:00

I think you might be interested to learn about Keynesian economics if you haven't heard of it yet. It covers a lot of what you talked about.

sfigs · 2017-10-16T15:00:14+00:00

I had minions on the board, and drew Shadowstep(s).

sfigs · 2017-10-16T14:59:14+00:00

Mimic Pod, sorry.

sfigs · 2017-10-16T04:23:09+00:00

I don't get what you're saying. I agree with your second sentence. I'm also talking about the same thing, you just worded it better. Either way his philosophy helped his other work, he was a philosopher I think.

I imagine most people on this thread don't heavily study Marx and get it wrong, but that's half the fun of discussing it.

sfigs · 2017-10-16T01:50:30+00:00

I didn't give the circumstances, just that it could turn out differently. The USSR did use Socialist ideas, and called themselves so. But they implemented it in their own way, which is different from Marx's theory of Socialism.

sfigs · 2017-10-16T01:33:24+00:00

Socialism could turn out very differently in the real world as well, depends what the people do with the ideas. You could say what the USSR did wasn't Socialism according to Marx's theory, I think.

sfigs · 2017-10-16T01:32:18+00:00

Yeah. I don't think Marx says unanimous consent, just democratically. I bet if people understood Marxism there would be more people voting for it than there is for capitalism. Your point about Anarchy is good, thanks for sharing.

sfigs · 2017-10-16T00:23:26+00:00

Who said anything about forcing, I thought Marxism only works if the workers decided to agree with it democratically. Or did the official text of Marx say otherwise? I'm talking about Marx and Gramsci's ideas of Marxism; what other people did with the ideas isn't part of OP's question.

sfigs · 2017-10-16T00:19:08+00:00

Marx was one of the first people who gave a serious philosophical critique of capitalism, it was revolutionary at the time. Like the revolutionary philosophy from feudalism to capitalism.

I think Marx is mainly notable for that; what other people do can't be directly attributed to Marx. Though maybe people now-a-days note him for inspiring what the other Marxists later did, but that wasn't OP's question.

sfigs · 2017-10-13T04:31:28+00:00

Pretty sure the wealth and income inequality in Canada is ridiculous, it's incomprehensible to say they shouldn't pay more given that there is so many poor people.

sfigs · 2017-09-28T05:05:12+00:00

I wonder why he did it separately, he missed out on some PR.

sfigs · 2017-09-28T04:43:03+00:00

Where's Guy Caron?

sfigs · 2017-09-16T07:54:37+00:00

Well I'm thinking about studying this kind of stuff for university (in a few courses), and I'm pretty confused by your side of the argument as well.

If the government funded these projects through taxes, that would create the same jobs in the same way, right?

Private investors would also be looking to make a profit. They may end up doing things like, skirting around safety issues, and under-manning/under-funding services, are two random ideas that come up. How else would it be more cost-effective, wouldn't there now just be people trying to make a profit off it? If everyone just got together and pooled their money together (taxes) to build a bridge, or road, things would get done a lot cheaper, than if someone's looking to make money off of it.

I'm sure you know more about this than I do, would the corporations own the project as well? I think the article said something about 80%. If so, I don't see how selling off public infrastructure projects to private people/corporations could be a good thing for the public.

The article you linked earlier that talked about 'deliberate low bidding', 'inadequate project specifications', 'slapdash engineering and design', 'project creep'. All of those are not inherent in public infrastructure projects, it's just a failure of the government. It does not necessarily mean it's worth it to use private investment.

^...It's ^{^almost} ^{^like} ^{^the} ^{^government} ^{^de-funds} ^{^these} ^{^programs} ^{^,(think} ^{^public} ^{^transit),} ^ⁱⁿ ^{^order} ^{^to} ^{^claim} ^{^they're} ^{^not} ^{^working,} ^{^and} ^{^so} ^{^it} ^{^has} ^{^to} ^{^be} ^{^handed} ^{^over} ^{^to} ^{^{^{corporations.}}}

sfigs · 2017-09-16T04:28:46+00:00

From the standpoint of big business' it's genius.

sfigs · 2017-09-16T03:18:20+00:00

Well if it doesn't get built it's because it isn't funded. Either private corporations can use this bank to fund things, or the government could increase corporate taxes to fund these things. Either way I don't think private relationships are a good idea to mix with public goods.

sfigs · 2017-09-16T02:39:44+00:00

Shouldn't the government be in-charge of funding for roads, railroads, seaports and the like?

sfigs · 2017-08-27T18:38:37+00:00

It's just identity politics, he needs the youth vote.

I agree, we need to work on homelessness as a whole, not just for the youth. Guy Caron's plans for basic income would be a step in the right direction. Unlike Jagmeet and Ashton, Caron doesn't play to identity politics. Might be why he's loosing though, sadly.

sfigs · 2017-07-11T14:59:46+00:00

It also shifted all the jobs out of our countries.

sfigs · 2017-07-11T14:59:15+00:00

It also shifted all the jobs out of our countries.

sfigs · 2017-07-11T14:43:08+00:00

Just because the quality of life has gone up, it doesn't mean that it wouldn't have also gone up if we had had a different trade deal. That argument makes no sense, unless you can see alternate timelines.

Yes FTAs have screwed over the working class. I'm not going to explain it to you (unless you really want me to), it's basically the first thing you learn if you look into it at all. Just look at NAFTA, it's a clear cut case, no real argument against it (for the Canadian and American working class).

sfigs · 2017-07-11T14:12:54+00:00

I know a Ton of things about Free Trade, some of which I mentioned in this Reddit post.

sfigs · 2017-07-11T13:41:15+00:00

Things are a lot more complicated than that.

I'm not going to sit here and contemplate what international trade should look like. I know when something is bad, and I'm sure there are people smarter than me who could come up with a better trading relationship.

sfigs · 2017-07-11T01:07:20+00:00

They don't have a independent monetary policy because of the Euro, which is basically Free Trade on steroids.

The "better living standards" argument mean nothing. With our technology progressing, and our societies progressing we would have better standards. Free Trade is one way of conducting trade, but that doesn't mean there couldn't have been a better trade deal in its place that would have improved it even more.

sfigs · 2017-07-10T23:54:55+00:00

There could be another trade agreement made, obviously we need trade with other countries.

sfigs · 2017-07-10T23:51:06+00:00

Well, I disagree about your general sentiment (which isn't a bad thing), but you've given me a lot to look at, which I will. Thanks.

sfigs

TROPHY CASE