uziq wrote:
Jay wrote:
uziq wrote:
the richest western nations in the world generate so much product/wealth that they could seriously and easily implement a universal basic income, if they wanted to.
but nah, instead jay is concerned about refugees from war-torn nations and single mothers abusing food stamps.
oh and high executive pay? tax evasion? it’s not a problem. it has no effect on the average american’s life whatsoever.
remember, in the culture war, it’s the fault of the poor and the needy for destroying society’s trust and values. just like it was the fault of all those careless and procreative blacks in their slums for spreading covid-19. the ruling class at the top accumulating all the wealth and flouting all the tax laws and financial regulations are not undermining trust or damaging the cohesion of society AT ALL.
Why do you always rail against the corporations? Mike Trout is making more money this season (or would if not for COVID) than pretty much every CEO in the country. The average salary for CEO's is $7.8M. The average baseball player makes $4.38M. NBA players make $5.15M, on average. Ronaldo is making 31M euros. Tom Cruise made $70M for mission impossible. Harrison Ford made $65M for Indiana Jones.
You still didn't answer my question from before either. The people you're jealous of have wealth that is in the form of stocks. They have minimal salaried income. Do you want them to divest their stocks and give up control of their companies? What's your plan here? Or is it just a talking point you picked up along the way that you gave no actual thought as to how to implement?
how many film stars or NBA players are there? jesus christ.
their ‘minimal salaried income’ is 235x the even more minimal salary of regular workers; only a part of it is in stocks; people are still paid many tens of millions of dollars a year in salaries alone. it’s not rare at all in banking or finance, or even certain spheres of law.
what’s my plan? what, you think patching up holes in benefit fraud is possible, but not doing the same for tax evasion or legal loopholes? why is it that it’s impossible to maintain a safety net because of fractional amounts of benefit cheating, but huge amounts of lost income to tax is okay?
many european countries have hard legal limits on the difference between executive and regular worker pay. it’s done as a ratio/multiplier. many other countries have progressive tax regimes. it doesn’t make their businesses uncompetitive, their executive CEO class a bunch of trash no-talents, and it doesn’t lead to the collapse of their societies as your bullshit little ‘axis’ above predicted. dipshit.
there’s so many ways to change the status quo that i find it pretty amazing, not to say ignorant and parochial of you, to assume that america’s is the optimal and only ‘working’ set-up. the situation for executives and top tax-band earners has changed significantly since the 1970s alone. those have all been policy and political decisions, jay.
again, why does food stamps wastage bother you but not tax cuts for corporations? the sums aren’t even comparable. you’re happy for the state to intervene and become protectionist over its top corporations but you hate any help given to the most needy and poor. why can’t corporations suffer for their recklessness and poor decisions? isn’t it sinister ‘leftism’ to insulate them from consequences? you’re pro corporation bailout and anti benefits fraud
it’s really fucking funny.
Because there are many more poor than there are rich, and a little waste amongst many is greater than a little fraud amongst few.
Fortune 500 CEOs earn $11.5M on average. Let's assume that the average corporation they run has 20,000 employees. Divide that salary equally among everyone in that company and it works out to less than $2 per day ($575 each, annualy), per employee. That's less than a cup of Starbucks coffee per day. So the money going to the CEO is hardly paupering the people that work for him or her.
While we're at it, there are 750 Major League Baseball players making a combined $3.285BN. There are 1,696 NFL players making a combined $3.561BN. So right there, we've found more money in salaries than are paid to Fortune 500 CEOs. Where's the outrage? Where's the calls for lowered ticket prices?
See, it's not that I'm pro CEO pay. It's that I actually have the ability to perform basic math and have a grasp of mathematical scale. To you there's no real difference between 10,000 and 10,000,000. They're just big numbers. You don't seem to have the ability to comprehend scale and magnitude. You're not alone. Most people seem to be terrible at it. It's why casino's make so much damn money.
For someone that claims he went into his trade knowing he wouldn't be making very much money, and who eschewed "the money game", you sure do have a lot of pent up jealousy and resentment. Maybe you should've actually chased the money for a few years? Maybe you wouldn't be feeling so angsty in your 30s if you had set yourself up better?