Yes, yes, I get that. But these companies should have diversified their funds. We were in a bear market since January of 2022. They should have known this type of blackswan event could happen. Anyway, we've bailed out banks and investors in 2008. Now it's the depositors and VCs. You can clearly see the trend forming, from reckless banks to their irresponsible depositors. Who's it gonna be next?
Socialism for the Rich and Capitalism for the Poor !
- Thread starter schizo
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Btw, it's very rare (if ever) that a revolution is started by the poor who've had enough. The French Revolution certainly wasn't. Urbanization developed the economy which created a bourgeoisie deprived of the privileges reserved for the noble elite to which they could not ascend to. They fomented the resentment by speaking of the injustices of the system, the plight of the downtrodden, and easily convinced the already angry majority to revolt.
The basis of all system altering social swells from the Right and the Left is idealism (usually driven by one man), the belief that perfection is attainable and around the corner, be it from Robespierre, Lenin, Hitler, Mussolini or Jesus.
The basis of all system altering social swells from the Right and the Left is idealism (usually driven by one man), the belief that perfection is attainable and around the corner, be it from Robespierre, Lenin, Hitler, Mussolini or Jesus.
Or you can just call it "class warfare", where one class unfairly benefits at the expense of the other, thereby creating economic antagonism. The question, however, is not about "having enough" of anything. It's about having "not enough" in comparison to what others are receiving. If everyone gets the same slice of the pie, there's nothing to complain, is there? It's only when one class gets a disproportionately larger pie than the other class, that's when fear and loathing rears their ugly head.
That's wishful thinking. There's no study demonstrating that economic equality leads to "happiness". Quite the opposite, I think it leads to petty infighting of the worst kind, with everyone checking on everyone else to ensure they are not more equal than the other. I've seen this behavior often enough living for a time in so called equalitarian systems like China or Singapore.
I think humans subscribe to competitive advantages and, if economic reward is removed, we spontaneously seek to find it in other ways, like by working the least to get the same. I think it's a common response in Europe and North America for people who drop out of the working economy for whatever reason (no judgement) to figure out the system to maximize benefits without having to work. Take this to a generational level and you now have a permanent underclass of people who are raised knowing how to maximize benefits without having to spend hours a day at a job. In Europe it's an epidemic dysfunction thanks to generous safety nets, where one can game the system and live correctly without legally working. It is done in the US as well, but the living conditions of these groups is much worse.
There, you said it yourself: the living conditions of these groups is much worse.
And therein lies the difference. If you're just a lazy slacker who is living off of welfare, your living standard will remain crappy even after you get the monthly check. You still belong in the lower rung of economic ladder. Unfortunately, the government does not hand out these welfare checks without first raising hell for the applicants. And now they want to raise the bar even higher.
What about the affluent class who get the free bailouts from the government?
They have enough money to live without any government help. And yet they still get it anyway. In fact, they didn't even ask. The government did it on their own initiative. And voila, these rich folks are made whole again.
You call that FAIR???
BTW I fully agree with you that nobody should get free lunch. Everyone should work hard for their equitable share of the pie.
What I'm bitching about is how the government is unfairly giving more and better access to the rich, but at the same time limiting the poor to the same financial resources, even though it's on a much smaller scale.
That title is crap, no offense. And the article says "The legislation would impose more harsh work requirements on certain recipients amid growing food insecurity.
More than a dozen House Republicans are expected to release legislation Tuesday that would impose more harsh work requirements on certain recipients of federal food aid, a clear signal that the GOP intends to target nutrition assistance in critical debt ceiling, budget, and farm bill talks." Imposing work requirements for food assistance is "targeting nutrition assistance"? LOL How is that so? So you are supposed to do just nothing to receive handouts and that should be justified?? That to me is nothing but a load of bullcrap. You are supposed to work for the food that you eat. Even animals have to work to hunt for the food that they eat otherwise they starve to death. And you expect full-grown adult people with able bodies and minds to just sit around do nothing and receive handouts?? That is absolutely ridiculous to begin with. That bill's original design is completely flawed and it makes sense to reform the bill to make it actually fairer for the rest of us who have to work to earn our food especially in this inflationary time where increasing productivity is crucial.
I would say Hooray to the Republican legislators who are brave enough to tackle this legislation to reform it and make it more economic sense. This has nothing to do with rich and poor. Rich people became rich because they worked and worked hard. This is the problem with the poor. They think the rich became rich because they were born rich. Several studies have shown that majority of the wealthy Americans, 70% to be exact, were born in middle or even lower income classes. Another study showed that only 21% of wealthy Americans were the recipients of inheritance and a study specifically by Fidelity Investment showed that 88% of multi-millionaires are self-made. https://steveadcock.us/millionaires-inherited-wealth-think-again/#:~:text=Data suggests that wages, rather,the majority of wealthy Americans.&text=A Ramsey Solutions study of,received any inheritance at all.
So maybe this work-for-food stamps program would help kickstart people to work and actually become rich and won't need food assistance anymore.
I think it's much worse in America because America is in a much worse state of social infrastructure evolution, by choice I might add. It didn't have to be that way if you look at the historically very similar nations of Canada and Australia, where the quality of life for the general population is similar to Europe's. Higher taxation provides for more and better benefits for all, until taxation becomes so burdensome that it discourages people from building businesses and they prefer to just become employees or leave. This results in higher unemployment and thus more giving social safety nets.
In the cult of individualism America, a sizeable section of the population is against even the idea of a safety net. What for? You get what you work for and stop crying about your circumstances because we all have problems. That stereotype permeates a large part of the American psyche. Middle class America is the perfect image of what's achievable with hard work, while working and below classes (a communist word) live at poverty levels to rival eastern European sense of poverty. It's not just financial poverty but also educational, intellectual and aspirational poverty covering substance abuse, violence, 24/24 media consumption and it doesn't care about skin color, gender or origin. It's everywhere. In the Appalachian, the bayous, the plains, the cities... So much poverty
In the cult of individualism America, a sizeable section of the population is against even the idea of a safety net. What for? You get what you work for and stop crying about your circumstances because we all have problems. That stereotype permeates a large part of the American psyche. Middle class America is the perfect image of what's achievable with hard work, while working and below classes (a communist word) live at poverty levels to rival eastern European sense of poverty. It's not just financial poverty but also educational, intellectual and aspirational poverty covering substance abuse, violence, 24/24 media consumption and it doesn't care about skin color, gender or origin. It's everywhere. In the Appalachian, the bayous, the plains, the cities... So much poverty
So my question is this. Please read with some thought before jumping to conclusion. You have poor reading comprehension.
1) Why is the government giving out handouts to the rich without any strings attached, when in fact they can get by without those handouts? Most people with over $250K do not need government assistance.
2) If the rich are able to get handouts for nothing, shouldn't the same standard apply to the poor? Why must the poor be villified as a bunch of lazy ass when the rich who fucked up on a grand scale is so easily forgiven?
My point isn't about rich vs poor, or even Democrat vs Republican. It's about the hypocritical standard that favors the wealthy over the poor (or rather the eroding middle class due to income inequality).
Everything in the world is a ponzi scheme. That we already know, even in video games we play. The earlier that you start playing the game, the higher levels that you achieve, the better eq that you have, the better you are. Think of the real life as one giant game that you play; the rich are the players that have been playing for a longer time or have found tricks and have got better drops by sheer luck sometimes and as a result of it have achieved higher levels, having more exps, having more gold/coins/whatever is the currency of the game and have better abils and skills. This is why you have to do more quests and do more raids, to try to get ahead and to get the rare drops so you can power-level and become high-level which is like becoming rich irl. Once you become a high-level player, the game's dev. will ask you for input and would even tailor the game to suit your needs and taste just like how the rich can lobby the government to their favour which is I believe what you are referring to as "he government is unfairly giving more and better access to the rich" and then the rest of the player would have to conform to the rules of the government that the rich has shaped which is what you believe as the government "at the same time limiting the poor to the same financial resources". The point of the game is to work hard and even harder to get ahead and become rich yourself so you can shape the game yourself and not just sit there and just keep complaining.
At least we live in a world there are actually opportunities where the poor actually have a chance to become rich. In many societies and cultures, if you are born into certain "castes" or social statuses or whatever, you remain poor for the rest of your life and are never even given a chance to become rich, ever. And we've got it easy. In the animal kingdom, if you don't work hard to find your food, you starve to death and there is no social safety net to save you.
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