Thanks guys. Now I know when I'm walking around a big city, it's not the gangs that are going to rob me, it's the democrats. http://www.gallup.com/poll/147881/Americans-Divided-Taxing-Rich-Redistribute-Wealth.aspx "Republicans and Democrats have sharply different reactions to the government's taking such an active role in equalizing economic outcomes. Seven in 10 Democrats believe the government should levy taxes on the rich to redistribute wealth, while an equal proportion of Republicans believe it should not. The slight majority of independents oppose this policy. The question also provokes different reactions from men compared with women, whites vs. nonwhites, and upper-income vs. lower-income Americans. Consistent with their more Democratic political orientation, women, nonwhites, and lower-income adults are all more supportive than their counterparts of government redistribution of wealth via taxes."
That's how primates work. If you don't like the dynamic (assuming you are wealthy), don't exacerbate it with big wealth differentials. I'm not saying that just because it is so, that's how it ought to be, but changing human nature is pretty tough. ; )
Ricter, can I help you out here for a second? The wealth gap in this country is not because of wage differentials, it's because of assets. The rich "own". The poor "borrow". And assets are inflated through the printing of money. You could raise tax rates on the rich to 90% and the wealth gap will keep getting wider because their assets (land, stock, gold, diamonds, art, intellectual property) will keep going higher while the poor go deeper and deeper into debt. Why is this so hard for you to understand? The only way to "truly" fix this is to confiscate the actual private assets of the rich. Is this really what you want your country to do? Are you really supporting that idea?
It could be worse than confiscation. In the past they've been guillotined. I know that seems incredibly harsh. I also know that for most measures of human well-being, individual, social, creaturely and symbolic, people are generally healthier and happier in more equal societies. Many, many people in this country have lost trust, faith, and neighborliness, among other hard-to-measure but essential traits, over the past few decades. Look at Lucrum's list of 1967 vs. 2010. This is a result of the perception of unfairness. We have taken "those who have the gold make the rules" too far for our own good.
"70% of Democrats want to take your money" Only 70%? Too bad ET doesn't have more of the other 30% hanging around.
I strongly disagree with this. It is not about the perception of fairness. What lucrum posted is about government gone wild.
Agreed, but I think we've come to that state of affairs because we've come to value safety over freedom. Thus, we are afraid. We all instinctively understand what I'm getting at during those uncommon and unfortunate moments when we get out of our cars and we're surrounded by panhandlers, for example. Sadly, most people blame the panhandlers.
I don't understand what you're saying. But then I've never met a panhandler I was afraid of and I DO blame them.
The majority of Panhandlers choose to be panhandlers, they arent out there because of some injustice caused by society. Most of them are junkies who just panhandle for enough to get their fix. There is no reason the majority of people like this could not find a job if they wanted to. There is the odd schizophrenic guy who is homeless because he has no way of fitting in to society, but people like this are few and far between.
You're wrong, I see a lot of homeless walking the streets of nyc talking to themselves/yelling at made up people, there are alot of homeless with mental problems. Just this morning I was walking my dog and a homeless guy started yelling at a brick wall and then turned to me and said your dogs are beautiful and tried to get into a whole convo with me. At least he was pleasant.