As the global economy shrinks, the wealthy get wealthier and the poor get poorer, proving that once you are wealthy enough, you are no longer affected by what happens in the real world, your sheer wealth becomes almost self-sustaining even in the face of economic downturn.
Not a single billionaire ever made their wealth through honest labor. It is time we crack down on these dragons, sitting on their hoards of gold.
> It is time we crack down on these dragons, sitting on their hoards of gold
How do you propose this be done? Repossess their wealth and redistribute it equally? Tax the wealthy more? Abolish capitalism? Abolish money and create a new system of value? Throw all filthy rich billionaires into a dungeon full of hungry lions?
What KozmoNau is your proposal to end this unfairness?
However, let's start by making sure everyone with a job makes a decent living wage. I define this as being able to support oneself with housing, clothing, food and have a non-zero amount of savings, without having to rely on welfare.
Let's make sure that everyone (and I mean everyone) who can't or won't work for whatever reason has at least somewhere to live and three square meals every day. The western world is prosperous and can easily afford this, especially given the money saved by no longer harassing homeless people and punishing people for loitering and petty crimes.
Let's make education freely available to everyone, it will pay back massively long-term, an educated population is a healthy population is a prosperous population.
Legalize marijuana and free all the people currently in jail for minor drug offences, victimless crimes. All of that money is so much better spent elsewhere.
Then we get into taxes. Tax all inheritance, why should you get a free ride, just because your parents were wealthy? Set it at the same level as income tax, it is income after all. Tax gains on investments and speculation. No free rides, taxes are the waterwheels on the flow of money, they translate it into productive uses for society. You don't tax the tiny flows, do you? Tax the powerful flows, to provide for the good of the whole of society.
That said, massively reduce the ridiculous overspending on military and police, it is absurd and offensive how much money gets shoveled that way, thanks to cronyism and lobbyism and exploitative contracts by private contractors.
This is just a very few ideas, but the major problem is getting rid of corruption and lobbyism and make the elected politicians actually work for all of their constituents, not just those with wealth.
Wow. You've gone really off-tangent with this but I'll try to put one back in.
While your proposals are noble, none of them will solve the inequality problem in the broad sense. Might eradicate low levels of poverty. However I still see the rich winning at the front line of this race without breaking any sweat.
Some of these things are do-able like ending starvation globally.
Some of them like legalization of narcotics might not be so easy.
Your solutions however tend to lean on tackling misappropriation of public funds and resources. This can also be solved by collectively electing servant leaders and keeping them accountable. If only the people can even aspire to unite as one.
Equalizing the world economically has no easy approaches. The more you think of it, the more you just see resetting all bank accounts to zero and creating a new value system being the most ideal way. One with a different idea of money. Capitalism has allowed a few individuals to amass disproportionate amounts of obscene wealth. Now that it is out of the gate, the beast cannot be returned to its lair. It must be slain if we are ever to return to harmony and balance.
I think if I were given the chance at tackling this. Say I wake up tomorrow and realize am the president of the entire world. I would go back to sleep and wish this new position away in my dreams.
You're the one talking about some utopian ideal of complete equality, I didn't bring that up :-)
I want us to not let people die from hunger, exposure and disease, which we currently do every day, because it's not profitable enough to make sure their needs are met.
I want us to stop punishing people for harmlessly growing and ingesting plants that make you feel good.
I want us to use our societies' wealth to do things for the benefit of society and humanity, instead of letting some wealthy people amass even greater wealth.
It was not very long ago that the great nations of the world did things "not because they are easy, but because they are hard". We need to bring that sort of idealism to bear on the great issues that trouble the world, namely climate change, ecosystem destruction, hunger and disease.
There’s nothing capitalistic about wealth being concentrated in the hands of a few. In fact, it’s almost certainly leads to the absolute destruction of capitalism.
A society where all the money lies in the hands of a few is more like a monarchy than a capitalist society.
And one simple solution to end this unfairness (it’s not the unfairness that’s a problem...it’s the fact that it makes a complete mockery of society and the idea of capitalism if you’re more philosophically inclined, that’s the problem) is to return to tax rates that were prevalent when the US was growing faster than it ever has, in the decades following the Second World War.
The complete mockery of capitalism is a good point, the hardcore libertarians and standard bearers for capitalism today have obviously never read what people like Adam Smith actually wrote.
