• Maeve
      link
      fedilink
      57 months ago

      We don’t know their dark money shush fund income or expenditure, and guess who’s never passed an audit?

      • @CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
        link
        fedilink
        17 months ago

        I would be shocked if they were earning a significant amount compared to federal funding. This is monthly, if you missed that like OP.

  • circuitfarmer
    link
    fedilink
    317 months ago

    The US has a problem of representation. Specifically and especially since the Citizens United decision, corporate interests can easily flow money towards politicians to make them do just about anything they want. This exacerbated an existing problem with the corporate tax rate and has now brought it into laughably low territory.

    That’s all an oversimplification of course, but it’s not that Americans haven’t “figured it out”. It is far more complicated than that.

    • @wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      English
      197 months ago

      Thank you. I’m getting quite tired of people posting the most fucking obvious takes about problems in the US, then going “why haven’t americans fixed this? are they stupid?”, when we have exceedingly small control over the actions of our shitass policy makers.

      It’s some real “everyone is dumb except for me” energy.

        • Cowbee [he/they]
          link
          fedilink
          207 months ago

          Of course it’s not as simple as just saying organize, I never said it was. Organizing remains the only path out, and it is possible.

        • @wizardbeard@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          link
          fedilink
          English
          107 months ago

          OWS crumbled in ways right out of various leaked three letter agency guides to disrupting grass roots movements.

          I’d love to see it get another try, with how news sources have become far more decentralized. Less opportunity for major news orgs to kill the momentum.

          Full disclosure, the destruction of OWS is pretty much the one thing I allow myself to go “full tinfoil hat” over.

          • sunzu2
            link
            fedilink
            27 months ago

            Covid protests and jan6… There is a always some fed running this things even ifntheu start organically.

        • Barx [none/use name]
          link
          fedilink
          27 months ago

          OWS was not well-organized. Palestinian solidarity groups are doing better. The key difference is in being able to coherently make informed decisions as a group and then act on them as one.

          Every OWS encampment was basically 5-30 orgs all doing their own thing and then fighting about horizontalism and being naive about how the cops and City Hall would treat them. We need to be able to act like 1-3 orgs (even if there are more), politically educate so we can avoid mistakes, and create good structure as early as possible so that expectations are set and time isn’t wasted and bad decisions are avoided.

          The US left is basically slowly relearning the basics of organizing. Get involved and make it go faster!

      • @zante@lemmy.wtf
        link
        fedilink
        English
        27 months ago

        Yeah I can’t figure it out. All those gun rights. You’d think they’d do more with them

      • sunzu2
        link
        fedilink
        17 months ago

        There is a reason why one happens and the other doesn’t.

    • @MNByChoice@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      27 months ago

      Thought MMT was recently disproved.

      No sources. Thought the recent inflation showed it to not model things. It would be great if MMT worked though.

      • davel [he/him]
        link
        fedilink
        English
        5
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        MMT isn’t a tool for modeling all of inflation’s factors. It’s simply a description of how sovereign fiat money works. Some people mistakenly (or knowingly, for disparagement or promotion) attribute things to MMT that it just isn’t.

    • DominusOfMegadeus
      link
      fedilink
      37 months ago

      It was really bothering me that I was pronouncing this “YOO ESS-EEANNS” in my head every time I saw people using it. I just realized it can definitely also be “YOO-ZHIANS.” Which is obviously far superior.

  • Hegar
    link
    fedilink
    107 months ago

    Estate taxes is woefully small. There should be a 100% death tax on all assets after $1M, excluding a single home.

      • Hegar
        link
        fedilink
        47 months ago

        I’m not sure I understand your point so if I’m off base let me know.

        Firstly, inheriting $200k - $1M doesn’t keep anyone poor. It doesn’t even stop wealth from concentrating at a level that harms others and warps society - it just prevents that level of wealth from passing down to people who did nothing.

        Secondly, if everyone was poor who would be controlling them? You have to keep most people poor and a much smaller group of people unassailably wealthy to control them. That’s exactly the problem that high death taxes address.

        • @ryannathans@aussie.zone
          link
          fedilink
          2
          edit-2
          7 months ago

          In my part of the world $1m (even for USD, add 40%)is not even enough to buy a small house. A million dollars is a FUCKLOAD of work but you can’t buy shit. At best you get a country shack with maintenance required, no insulation kind of thing, and no money left over.

          Maybe that adds some context.

          And is that $1m cap per person or for the whole estate? Either way people aren’t gonna interit anything that worthwhile

  • Cowbee [he/they]
    link
    fedilink
    87 months ago

    Most have, increasingly so, they just lack strong orgs. As Imperialism decays, more will be forced to grapple with reality.

  • @WeirdGoesPro@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    47 months ago

    An astounding amount of our government goes towards taking care of old people, yet it still feels like there is basically no safety net for them.

  • @CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
    link
    fedilink
    47 months ago

    TBF taxes on billionaires would go under individual taxes. And corporate taxes are relatively easy to fudge because corporations aren’t real except on paper.

  • Tofu_Lewis [he/him]
    link
    fedilink
    English
    37 months ago

    The poorest Americans are constantly fighting with the bureaucracy to get assistance, this is by design to make them hate it.

    Any addition to the expansion of the state will be met with hostility.

    • @sunbeam60@lemmy.one
      link
      fedilink
      17 months ago

      Endless US debt is fine, provided there keeps being interest in the US dollar as a reserve currency. The US national debt is simply the difference between money printed and money collected. As long as the US dollar “disappears” into the global economy (which it does), inflation is kept under check.