So where are the “Republicans are good for the economy” voters now?
Yeeaahhh, OR we can just not be dumbfucks and actually work on the economy, Elon, you hack
“Some of you may die, but it’s a sacrifice I am willing to make”
Why do we only seem to get the bad outlandish things from books and movies? :/
Honestly, aggressive climate change would have a similar short-term impact, even if the net result is good, which is a large part of the reason we don’t do aggressive changes like this.
That said, I’m not convinced the net result is good, so we’ll instead have short-term suffering followed by longer-term suffering, all for a bit of protectionism for American businesses (which will probably leave them worse off in the long run anyway).
Eat the rich.
That graph is interesting. When was Reagan president again…?
When was Reagan president again…?
Nailed it.
81-89. I don’t think Reagan’s presidency or party really explains it, because we see it rise shortly and then fall, both during Bill Clinton’s presidency (93-2001). So George H.W. Bush raised taxes during his term, and then Clinton cut them again, but did so while balancing the budget (Clinton ran a surplus).
Reagan certainly slashed taxes, but so did Clinton, and to a similar degree.
Necessary for Elon and trump to evade prison sentences.
These shitbags are trading the health of the majority to evade repercussions for their crimes (of which there are many).
Drone strike please.
There is no middle class. There are workers and owners. If you own real estate and stonks you are still a worker unless you can live off of just investments. This is designed to corrupt and neuter you. You have enough skin in the game of the owners to not want to oppose them, but not enough to actually be them. Unless you hope to retire, at which point you make the transition from working class to owning class, but only at the end of your life, if you even make it that far, and often owning very little.
This is why Worker and Consumer Cooperatives are so vital.
“designed” is a bit much but it sure does play into their hands.
Having a comfortable retirement has already been tied to the value of stocks going up. And a while back republicans wanted to do the same to social security.
It is designed. Being forced to buy real estate or stonks to save for retirement is a relatively recent policy, created by Richard Nixon, around the same time as deunionization that was also on purpose.
That’s not exactly true, here’s an article about the history of pension plans. Basically:
- pension plans weren’t common in the US until the mid to late 1800s
- contributions weren’t tax-free until 1921
- labor unions didn’t really get involved until the 1940s, or during and after WW2
- pension plans didn’t have much legal protection until the ERISA standards of the 1970s
So pensions are pretty recent, and IMO largely became important in the 1940s because companies were prevented from competing on salary due to wartime wage controls:
long quoted section
But there was almost no indication for decades that employer-sponsored health insurance would spread from sea to shining sea.
World War II disrupted those trends. As demand for everything — particularly labor — climbed, Congress passed the Stabilization Act of 1942, which allowed the president to freeze wages and salaries for all the nation’s workers. A day after its passage, President Franklin Roosevelt issued an executive order invoking these powers, which applied to “all forms of direct or indirect remuneration to an employee,” including but not limited to salaries and wages, as well as “bonuses, additional compensation, gifts, commissions, fees.”
But there was an exemption of massive proportions slipped into a fateful clause: “insurance and pension benefits” could grow “in a reasonable amount” during the freeze.
As companies struggled to deal with wartime labor shortages, the wage freeze left them in a serious bind: How could they retain workers if they couldn’t give raises? If they didn’t soon realize the allure of fringe benefits, insurance companies pressed that case through marketing campaigns, as historian Jennifer Klein has observed.
The Revenue Act of 1942 triggered another rush to enroll employees in health plans. By slapping corporations with tax rates of 80 or even up to 90 percent on any profits in excess of prewar revenue, Congress all but guaranteed a frenzied search for loopholes. Employee benefits, according to the new law, could be deducted from profits. As an anonymous employer observed in a study published on trends in health insurance, “it was a case of paying the money for insurance for their employees or to Uncle Sam in taxes.”
Due to that, employer healthcare and pension/retirement plans became common because companies had to pick between paying a ton of taxes or increasing benefits to attract and retain workers, and many of them chose the latter.
Defined contribution plans (e.g. 401ks) actually started under Carter when he signed the Revenue Act of 1978, which was also a tax cut. They became prolific under Reagan, but probably because he took office 3 years after (big changes like that take time to get adopted) and not because of anything he necessarily did.
Companies are moving away from pensions because they add risk to the company that 401ks don’t, and employees aren’t necessarily choosing jobs based on them having a pension, but based on overall benefits. And the average person is probably better off with a 401k instead provided they contribute the same amount as they would to the pension because pensions are conservatively invested (i.e. the company wants to cover its butt), whereas 401ks can be aggressively invested, meaning more growth and thus more money available at retirement time. It can be pretty dramatic too, as in 4-5% growth for pensions vs 10-12% in a 401k, because a pension needs to provide guaranteed payouts, while a 401k just needs to provide expected payouts.
Before Nixon, you could just save money for retirement.
Shut up, shut up, shut up please just shtfu already elon. How are people like him and bezos controlling the world? I swear we celebrate and praise mediocre morons in the US.
As a nation we have lost 30 years of progress because we give the loudest most idiotic people to ever live a platform to spew their collective nonsense. Take me back to 2010 where the internet was still fun and not just some massive propaganda machine for the uber wealthy and political nut jobs
He’s never going to shut up. But people keep amplifying his pathetic voice by sharing what he says. There’s a very large group of society that needs to stop sharing outrage fodder.
In trump’s case, we praise exceptional morons
How are people like him and bezos controlling the world?
Capitalism
Which is now, very very obviously, not a system design to promote it’s own fitness, a la Darwinism…
I wonder what happens to piles of sand placed in the path of high-flowing rivers?
But without capitalism we wouldn’t have (insert something that has nothing to do with capitalism but that I completely attribute to it). And that would mean no trade.
My ancestors wouldnt have pushed at least one Southern plantation owner to suicide.
I believe this is what they call based
They werent John Brown style abolitionists, they just got pissed off by a business associate and took it about as far as you would expect from a family who still consider themselves American-Scots.
The United States has always been the best place for the mediocre white man.
Fascist cunt
Trump is better at this than Musk…
It will be a beautiful necessary. Everyone will love the carnage. We will destroy America bigly. Like never before. The radical left democrats will hate it, but it will be glorious. Trust me.
necessary for what?
necessary for what, motherfucker?
Your comment has the same energy as "states’ rights to do what?", and I’m here for it.
If I wasn’t at work I’d edit the goose meme to match.
I love that meme
You get me.
For a complete fascist takeover.
🔪🦢
Wait till he hears how necessary it is for life to get harder for billionaires.
That’s why they’re trying to take power. Billionaires would rather destroy the world and drive all life to extinction than to give up their private jets and yachts.
The French found a solution some time ago, maybe history really repeats.
There are now a lot of people who think we should be nice to billionaires because they also could become one sometime in the future
just wait till they outlaw protests and impose curfews
do i tell him?
That’s so 2020. Oh, that was under trump rule. Just a small sample of what’s to come if he gets into office again.
Wouldn’t be the first civilization that disappeared because the elite doesn’t want to compromise and give up status. It’s a constant in history.
The worst part is–it’s really not. These guys could all stay millionaires and we could still solve our system’s worst distribution issues. Their biggest hardship could be dealing with not being The Guy With The Biggest Number when they go to their rich guy parties.
Personally I’m in favor of making them destitute and/or imprisoning them, but going that far really isn’t strictly necessary.
These guys could all stay millionaires and we could still solve our system’s worst distribution issues.
UBI actually makes billionaires richer, even with higher taxes. Money trickles back up to them. The problem with UBI is that it redistributes power, and the powerful want all of their power. Wealth “needs” to buy power.
Harder - lol. He’ll have to settle for two 180 foot yachts instead of three.
The fucking gall this billionaire POS has to utter the phrase “live within our means.”
its only “necessary” so him and his ilk can continue to bleed the nation dry
🗡️🫨
… there’s no guillotine emojis yet
What even is that face emoji doing?
I like how you improvised.
Edit: 🗡️🫠. I wanted to try and I like this.
its the billionairs head rolling away, no?
That was my other choice
“Some of you may die, but that is a risk I am willing to make”
When can we feed Elon to a dragon?
