"You want better education...look, it's going to be hard to do that without government" Husband and wives do it everyday at home for their children! Private schools do it, even for the poor through scholarships and other means. Public education is the mess it is precisely BECAUSE it is public.
Now how much does this family's standard of living decrease, since now only 1 parent can work while the other does homeschooling? Compare this decrease in standard of living to that of decrease in S.O.L. for the rich who pay the taxes for public schooling. From 20 million a year to 12 million...does that really make a big difference in your quality of life if you don't have a spending problem?
rmand139 If a drop in the standard of living concerns the family, they should send their kid to a privately-managed school, with the help of scholarships, grants, tax breaks, or other financial support. Likewise, a family can hire a babysitter/guide if they want to in order to facilitate a child through the process of learning with their inherit curiosity, which has formed the basis of the "unschooling" movement (solving the problems faced with homeschooling). Hope this helps. Please send me more questions if you need help. :-)
Death24 I home school and make it work and am financially stable. My kids average 2 grades higher than public schooled children. Private schooling would also do better: there are multiple reasons why. One we can into if you ever read this post.
"..wealth itself gives advantages to people.." this is the thought process of a socialist. The problem with this absurd statement (along with everything else this guy said) is that there is no solution to those problems other than force (which is not a solution.. only another problem). Discrimination? How do you solve that? Pass laws? I had no idea that laws could make people like other people. Anti-discrimination laws protect those people who are discriminatory, nothing more! They don't help the disadvantaged! And you cannot "solve" the problem of people having an advantage because they have more wealth any other way than by taking wealth from them and giving it to others.. but in a free market that wealth was not gained from theft... it was gained from trade.. by offering something to someone that they wanted in exchange for something the purchaser valued less. And if you do this you destroy the very incentives that create wealth in the first place. Wealth is NOT something that just exists! It must be created first!
If I work really hard all my life and manage to earn and save millions of dollars, I'll be damned if I'm going to let anyone stop me from passing it on to my kids and family in such a way that they healthily challenged to work for their own goals, but have the money in reserves for what they need if they need it.
At the root of this discussion is this: the high end of the scale can, in theory, always get higher -- but zero is always zero. The so-called "gap" is always magnified by the fact that the bottom will never be greater than zero.
Exactly. The person I am talking to refueses to believe that over time, people do eventually make it to the top 20%. It is not about winning the lottery, although some people do. It is about working hard, and time. If you work hard long enough, there is no doubt in my mind you will be in the top 20% if you are also smart and not waste your money.
There's a difference between taking from some to give to others, and just taking from some so they have less. I interrupted him as saying the second.
11 лет назад+1
The problem with the inequality of today is that it is in many cases ill gotten through government subsidies, bail-outs, money-printing, patents and copyright. Removing the barriers for people to work and trade and soon the wealth will be redistributed. No force required.
It may actually increase inequality, yet decrease poverty. But, in any case, only the privileged would be so arrogant as to impose more poverty on poor people for the sake of equality. Yet that is something many elites, at least in effect, actually support. A few have even said they’re fine sacrificing the poor for such a collective goal. In fact, that’s practically the definition of historical progressivism. It’s much more a chance to punish a class of people for the sin of success, and very little to do with helping the poor.
Actually, historical progressivism is more complicated than that. It's more like it uses the envy of people (hoping to hurt the wealthy) to privilege the largest companies (in exchange for political support from them), at the expense of the largest companies' competitors. And, to be honest, that's pretty much the name of the game for the last 100 years.
Furthermore, wealth has a certain degree of gravitational pull, meaning that those who already have wealth have a much easier time accumulating even more, as they have the benefits of high interest rates when lending money and low interest rates when borrowing money. As well as all the political and legal benefits of being part of the upper crust. This difference is what people are protesting and the reason for why they demand a more leveled playing field.
Nobody says wealth trickles down. They say if you tax less, things will trickle down and that is a fact. When taxes are down, companies take more risk because they have more money. They are more likely to expand, to try and conquer, and to innovate. It does by definition trickle down. I have yet heard anybody say "wealth trickle down" without saying something else.
Extensive redistribution the government and may benefit those receiving the money but it certainly doesn't benefit those being heavily taxed. i would also argue that those receiving the redistributed wealth are harmed more than benefited regardless. Being told you deserve something you didn't earn doesn't do you any good.
i grew up in adverse poverty with a drug addicted mother and a father in prison... i took it upon my self to better my life.. i worked hard, multiple jobs, payd cash for my collage education and my car.. ive been homeless and ive been hungry. but i never gave up. i know own and operate my own business and im pretty much debt free. success take's initiative, drive, and above all else, either a good idea or business plan.
I love it. Claim 1) The government is controlled by the wealthy. Claim 2) The wealthy are not willing to give their wealth to the poor. Claim 3) Inequality is too great. Solution: get government to take the wealth from the rich and give it to the poor. And he can't see the problem here... My forehead is getting raw from being facepalmed.
I left out a word or had a typo. my point was that with will be taken from people who earned it and at least sometimes given to people who absolutely don't deserve it. That is wrong. Who had the authority or wisdom to redistribute anyway? I wouldn't trust anyone with that much power.
1. We should hale & embrace inequality, not apologize for it! To be an individual being means to be unequal. The more unequal you & I get means the more we separate ourselves against the environment as beings. A man's pursuit of inequality should not be infringed by the environment / "societal expectations".
Here is the rule of thumb that always becomes apparent: If a policy reduces the average individual's choices, then the policy tends to hurt the population as a whole. If a policy increases the average individual's choices, then the policy tends to benefit the population as a whole.
It always makes me laugh so much when people say "I'm skeptical of government but you cant do lets say education without it". Its one or the other man because the Freedom of the Individual and Government as we know it today can not coexist. Very small and limited government is all you need to keep mans freedom free. Which basically means the United States Constitution/Bill of Rights. All we need and are every getting closer to establishing is a Libertarian/Classical Liberal Society through technology. The only thing that concerns me is my generations willingness to say "we don't trust the government in our social lives but we want them to control and regulate the economic side of society". You cant separate the two because your social and economic freedom and liberties go hand in hand.
The other guy nailed it. "Progressive taxation, universal healthcare, free education, that is how you do it, look at Nordic countries, the most free, stable countries in history". If u want more detailed statistical facts, take a few seconds to google average living standards & quality of life index in those countries. There is no way to deny this without looking foolish
You can't just take the % of wealth into account you need to take consider the overall amount of wealth, technological advancements, and changes in living standards. And keep in mind the economic Pie doesn't stay the same, it's almost constantly growing so even though that 80% control a smaller percent of the Pie their piece of the pie may still be larger overall than the 20% before. The waning middle class is partly due to government (dis)incentives. Another important note Money isn't wealth.
I love how the Rawlsian dominated the Libertarian :) Nevertheless, Nozick's Night Watchman state is no less utopian than Rawls' own Overlapping Consensus on fundamental matters of justice as given by his own doctrine of Justice as Fairness. They're both Ideal Theory all the way down, which I don't find too problematic insofar as 'utopian' is seen to be synonymous with 'impossible' - unachievable ideals still can mark progress in some cases. Utopianism doesn't guarantee failure.
No one dominated anyone in this argument though. Someone who feels more inclined towards the idea that inequality isn't fundamentally unfair wouldn't necessarily have been swung by Reiman's arguments.
Agreed. I take issue with how much power and influence the wealthiest of people have. I don't have an issue with parents choices having an effect on their childrens lives. By working to negate advantages and remove disadvantages from everyones life you're removing consequences from their choices and restricting freedom and free will. As parents people have a great responsibility and must take it seriously. Provide everyone with a base of resources but don't punish those who reach beyond.
if you paid attention he said there needs to be some inequality to create incentives. The appropriate amount of inequality would be just enough to keep people motivated to strive for bettering themselfs.
Wealth inequality is fine in my book, Income inequality is another issue. Wealth means you saved smart. Not being paid fairly is different. I don't know what any given job is actually worth but I think people should be able to live off of what they earn.
There are a few premises here: 1. the society as a whole is wise because of the collective decision making, but is ineffective because of individual selfishness. 2. most of the individuals in a society are dumb because of lack of education(on decision making, not on work skills). 3. a few individuals in a society are smart as oppose to #2(which make them that 1%). These two guys are basically arguing about what that 1% are doing with their resources. The ideal case is that, those 1% are all really good people and care about the society, so they spend their resources on the society and make it better. However, the truth is that part of the 1% are not good people and they just want to do everything possible to keep their privileges by any means necessary(good or bad). Now this is when government comes into play. And there are a few types of governments, the ideal one is a government in which the leaders are the people from that 1% who are not selfish. The worst ones are the governments in which the leaders are either the 1% who are selfish or some dumb people who cannot make smart decisions. So what makes a government that's close to the ideal case? We need each individual to be as educated(on decision making) as possible. Then we need to use the society's collective decision making (democracy) to pick out those 1% who can lead the society to the better side. And last, we need a justice system that can make sure those 1% stay consistently good. The present situation in the US is that, people are not educated about decision making(we vote blindly and follow the "crowd", we are not educated enough on each party's policy, and we are not educated enough on the political system so we cannot make good decisions). In other words, we cannot pick good leaders. Second we do not have a good enough justice system to keep the leaders good(a good justice system will have ways to make sure the leaders stay on track).
The guy totally lost me when he said (23:05): "I don't see that it is so bad to take away the advantage that some rich kids get. What's wrong with that?"
He's right I do disagree with not giving people the freedom to give as much to their offspring as they can/want. 1) Freedom > Equality 2) There are very moral ways of passing entire positive enterprises on to your offspring. But in the middle of the video I was pondering: maybe it would be most moral to leave it up to your immediate offspring to worry about their immediate offspring, etc.
The easiest way to improve education is to get the government out of the way ideally removing it from education entirely. For related arguments see Andrew Bernstein work on Privatizing Education, The Objective Standard's article The New Abolition: Why Education Abolition is the Moral Imperative of Our Time and The Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom.
It happened with the wholesale of our politicians who then systematically took down every security measure in our legislation that was put in place to prevent another Great Depression one by one. Elizabeth Warren has spoken about this many times, if these laws were still in place in this time, there would be no ambiguity about whether these bankers broke the law, they would have been tried and jailed already for fed crimes.
Being born with the advantage of wealth carries a greater certainty of future wealth than those who are born with intangible advantages such as intelligence or musical ability. Intelligence or music ability is not a sure-fire way for success, as success often times requires a great deal of luck and determination. Its the difference between being born 5 meters away from the finish line and being able to maybe run to the finish line faster than other people.
The actual problem is not inequality but that a good portion of the income distributed to those at the top is unearned, is derived because of the systems of law and taxation that favors rent-seeking over the production of goods and services. There is, in effect, a redistribution of wealth from producers to non-producing rentier interests. Caring societies have since the second half of the 20th century implemented social programs designed to mitigate the worst consequences of the underlying systemic problems but have not come close to removing rentier privilege. A few economists have endeavored to challenge the status quo and challenge the ideological bias expressed by those on the Right and on the Left. Two who stand out are Joseph Stiglitz and Michael Hudson. However, the one economist who has for more than a half century written consistently on these issues is Mason Gaffney (emeritus professor of economics, University of California). A volume in honor of Mason Gaffney was published recently with the title "Rent Unmasked." This title essentially says all that is necessary to say. If we want a justice distribution of income and wealth the solution is to change the way government at all levels raises revenue, moving away from the taxation of wages, salaries, commerce and tangible goods, and begin to collect the rent of land and land-like assets.
7.25 is the minimum wage. 7.25 times 40 hours a week times 52 weeks equals $15,080. The federally defined poverty line for the contiguous United States is $11,170 for a single person. That means that unless you have kids, it's not possible to work full time and be below the poverty line.
This reflects the constant debate between the orientation of justice as a process (i.e., the non-aggression principle, applied to all, so that heterogeneous people will likely make diverse choices and "inequality" will result) and justice as an outcome (i.e., trying to bring about "equality," but only by allowing some to exceptionally use aggression to get there - and then the inequality becomes one of power, even if the society is paraded as "classless").
I can't seem to find your most recent comment and I can honestly say that I am proud of you for doing the math. Yes not everybody will be in the top 20%, that is why the numbers is 20%, but if you did do the math, then you can see that accumulating 1.7 million per household and a little less than 1 million per person by the time he/she retires is not a long ways off. Congratulations for digging deeper into the truth instead of sticking to those meaningless statistics.
While over-borrowing exist, it don't mean the end of time. Also to say Austrians don't make models is basically saying that a group of economist don't use math. It is a) completely untrue they make model and test them, and see if historical data fits their predictions and b) if they didn't use math and modelling it would make them completely worthless economist almost by definition.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IS UNEVEN SO IS THE WORK ETHIC, SWEAT, CREATIVITY, IMAGINATION, RISK TAKING, DISCIPLINE, PLANNING, HONESTY, INTELLIGENCE, MATURITY, ETC
I became confused because with any economic inequality there will be political and judicial inequality. You can take away the power of the government. But without changing the nature of our law system and political systems. More money will always yield more lawyers. More money will always yield more campaign commercials, and posters. So...how does getting rid of government restrictions possibly fix this issue?
By not allowing monopoly laws and regulations be established and getting rid of them. The same rich people are always on top because they have the government to protect them from competition. Once you take the government away from them they are vulnerable to loose capitalism from the lower class. A lot of the times the poor are in favor of those laws without noticing its doing more harm to them than good just because it sounds good on paper, Example: affordable healthcare act(obamacare). Thats is why some people believe no government at all is the answer but that's hard to sell even for a libertarian myself. I believe the best mechanism is informing and educating people around me as much as possible to change their hearts and minds of the proper role of government so they can vote responsibly.
Iziah Thompson I disagree since over 99% of all monopolies throughout history has been created or sustain through a legislative regulatory or a mandate. If you want to challenge me that then name me at least 3 monopolies that had been successful in sustaining through a free market principal. In order to abuse human rights you must use force, someone volunteering to work in a area with no a/c below the minimum wage is not consider to be abusing human rights. My uncle has work in those conditions and now he owns his own pluming company. "The paradox wouldn't exist if one could work hard and reach the top (I'm talking about mobility)" Well of course not like i explained early, government has always been there to prevent rather than getting out of the way. Its funny how some people judge policies by its intentions rather than its affects. Once you have proof when mobility has been restrictively low with minimal to no regularities and the government being a proper size of only taking 10% scope, then you don't have an argument to stand on.
This shouldn't be a debate, all one has to do is look out one's window to see that we still have starving, homelessness, a failed education system, a failed labor law system, and a system of checks and balances that doesn't work. We also have a media that wants to portray the inequality as a whole bunch of whiners who want something that's not their's, when they know darned well that's not the issue people are pointing to in this debate. The issue is manipulated legislation.
Its interesting that he thinks people are morally entitled to wealth. Does anyone know how one could come to this conclusion? And if so, what is the limiting principle?
You know who is the best off? Switzerland, Singapore, and HongKong. They are the richest, most free, healthiest, and happiest people on this planet. They have lots of inequality, but the difference is, the rich did not steal for it like they do in cronyism. The rich worked for it and in consequence made everybody better off.
Even though he says that he is suspicious of government, Reiman talks about correcting an imperfect society with a perfect government. If you think it's okay to redistribute wealthy people's money to those without the same political and legal clout as the very rich, what makes you think that those rich won't simply use their political buying power to turn your plans into something that just makes them richer?
I never said poor people can't live off of what they earn. I don't know where you got that from. I was just addressing jackryan's sentiment that everyone deserves to live off what they earn, no matter how hard they work.
CEO's pay is the subject we are discussing correct. The lack of qualified CEO's is what drives the salary.Companies were losing money right before the crash which dis-spells your argument that CEO's were paid for previous periods.
Great debate. Good points brought up on both sides. Why can't we have more discussions about the issues like this? It's a shame that most of the time, the "debate" is two people shouting each other down on a 24 hour news show that gets cropped and edited into clips to market for the program.
No, politically speaking, a liberal is someone who holds the ideological beliefs of liberalism. Within the political sphere, a liberal and a conservative are terms used to describe ideological positions, not general attitudes. In the US it seems there is confusion over some of the political terminology, which can be slightly annoying.
Point one - If government did not insert itself into markets there would be no incentives attracting wealth to politicians. Point two - The majority never had control of the government, nor were they intended to. Our founders created a representative republic, not a democracy. Our Founders feared no such thing, though many of them feared the influence of a central bank, and they were right.
"Discrimination is clearly wrong." Not necessarily. Ask yourself this: Why is it ok for people to discriminate when looking for a place to work, a place to shop or when looking to date someone but it all of a sudden becomes wrong when you discriminate in hiring someone?
Yes, that would be nice, wouldn't it? To live in a world where no matter how hard you work, how long you work, or what you do, you will STILL be able to live off of what you earn. Unfortunately, the real world doesn't work that way. The only way a worker is going to make that much money is if he makes his EMPLOYER that much money. Some jobs are not very profitable, so that worker can't expect to make much money doing that job. Workers need to give business owners a PROFIT.
In a Free market we've already voted on the level of income and wealth distribution, trough the actions we make every day. This is process far better reflecting what is just and right than having a government redistribute along arbitrary lines. Income inequality is never a problem, the problems are merely unfair advantages given by the state. And I don't believe every child has the same right to the same education. That's up for the parents to provide best they can
The US has two major problems when it comes to this. Suppressing free markets allowing the rich to remain rich and the poor without the opportunity to do so and a lack of liberated and accountable educational systems. Right these two wrongs to have a real free and fair market for all and have education choice and limitless learning growth then we will see a major improvement.
John Rawls acceptance that some equality is ok if its justified is flawed in that it presupposes and authority to decide what is the acceptable limit of inequality.
this is what people need to understand... why is it that my grandfather, and my mother (single mom) worked so hard to provide for THEIR FAMILY, but im entering a era where i have to worry about other peoples access to healthcare instead of having the opportunity to build my life and my assets so i can provide for my family one day instead of having to rely on a government program
Does providing fresh water, after privatising it, count as providing value and things "people wnat"? Or is it scavenging necessary resources we have no choice but taking? I recommend you play the game of substituting "fresh water" with different nouns. See where that takes you.
Help Me spread the word PEOPLE, enough is enough!!!!! Imbalance has ran long enough!!! Let's calibrate the scales and get things LEVELed!!!! 10% IS NOT enough!!! Spread the KNOWLEDGE to even the scores!!!
To Mr. Reiman: What is the point of earning money and working hard if you cannot share it with your children, family, and other loved ones? If you take away some of the major advantages of working hard for your money, then there is little point in working.
Even if an employer were to discriminate based on race or sexual orientation, it's not something we don't already tolerate from other members of society. Colleges discriminate with racial quotas, for example. When dating, someone might insist on a member of the same race. My point is, why is it only employers that are forbidden from making voluntary arrangements with whoever they choose, even if they have bad reasons for doing so?
Nobody is buying up all the water rights in the United States. Even if they did, we could also import water. There are also personal water purification systems that would become cost effective if people over charged for fresh water. Monopolies with absolute power are nothing but a myth.
On the publicly funded campaigns - what happens when we have 30 people running for a congressional district? 10 per party per primary? What about the parties not in the "big two"? Including all parties, with all the primaries, and all the candidates - that is HUGE money. All the TV time is taken up just showing debates! Every two years?? Plus, the INCUMBENT has a big advantage in this scenario. And whoever the newspapers and tv like gets more/free coverage - do they get limited too? BAD IDEA
The philosopher, Professor Jeffrey Reiman deals the knockout blow against the economist when he states that too much inequality can be measured by other countries, Europe. And, the disarming the argument of redistribution of taxes is not stealing when you are taking back their money.
I was willing to give Prof. Reiman the benefit of the doubt, until he said "redistribution doesn't mean (morally) that you take what belongs to the rich to give it, like Robin Hood, to the poor - it means that you give to the poor what they were always entitled to in justice." So, as long as I couch the utter violation of property rights in the arbitrary, vague language of "social justice", there are no moral or ethical repercussions?
We're all equal? Actually, we're all completely different and unique. We're all equal in the sense that we all have the natural right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Just wealth is the result of voluntary, and thus presumably mutually beneficial, transactions. Those who justly become wealthy have provided a benefit to others. Their economic power is meritocracy. The "inequality" premise seems to be that wealth deprives others, whereas in fact just wealth expands the opportunities for others. It isn't a zero-sum game, but win-win. If you sell me your car (equality-preserving), and I destroy it, should you give me half the money back to restore equality?
Success also requires resources. As in MONEY. As in scholarships, decent schools, good coaches, the tools to learn. We've got kids out there who could revolutionize the world...but they'll never get to touch a computer, much less own one. They start working as soon as it's legal, at a minimum wage job, just to help keep their families alive. No one is talking about absolute equality of income. But when 5% of Americans own as much as the next 95% COMBINED.....something is very, very wrong.
Conservatives are not liberals, that's why conservatives are called conservatives. Liberal by English definition means they are open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values. Conservationism means holding on to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion. I think what you are trying to describe is libertarian; people who put freewill and liberty at the forefront of society.
Redistribution is troublesome because beginning a policy with theft will never end well. (Note: Not all taxes are theft, but redistribution is complete theft).
It is very obvious that Mr. Jeffrey Reiman is a philosopher. He raises important points of consideration; however, I think many of them are a bit irrelevant and a bit to vague. Life isn't fair. People are born with genetic, financial, and all kinds of other advantages or disadvantages every day. You can't give everyone an identical starting point. It is only reasonable for you to give them equal opportunity to overcome any disadvantages they have... Great discussion!
You seem to have missed my point. I was saying that while completely different people may take their place, they have the same social status and privileges as the people they've replaced. I can't see a child from a poor family becoming influential unless it's an extremely uncommon thing (at any rate far, far less common than rich people and their children becoming influential.)
There is a correlation between inequality and violence, and more equal societies are more happy, you can play word games all you want, it doesn't change the facts. Progressive taxation, universal healthcare, free education, that is how you do it, look at nordic countries, the most free, stable countries in history.
You can go on teachersunionexposed where they actually cite how much the teacher union have given to campaigns. "According to the Reason Foundation, the California Teachers Association has spent more than $200 million on ballot initiatives" This is just in California.
"If you want to have better education, it's gonna be hard to do that without government..." 🤦🏽♂️ 🤦🏽♂️ 🤦🏽♂️ how can you say something like that and expect to be taken seriously as an academic person?? That statement is so wrong I don't understand how anyone could call themselves "educated"
Liam I just made my argument... what do you mean? Ever heard of private schooling or home schooling... there’s your education without government... doesn’t take an Einstein to figure it out lol
What matters, in the inequality debate, is not whether or not such inequality exists, but why. How did it happen? If it is the result of voluntary interactions, fine. But if it is the result of force (i.e., government "wealthfare" programs to favor those who line the coffers, and government "welfare" programs to ensnare those who seem to give the government legitimacy), it is anathema and should be condemned.
Yes I did do the math. If you take the average income multiply it by 40 years or by the time they retire, they accumulate between 1-4 million dollars of wealth per person. If you have two people it can go between 2-8 million. After taxes and expenditures and assuming that investments are stagnant, even though historically speaking you make money, many people do end up in the top 20% bracket. Not to mention as people get older, they get paid more.
This isn't a debate. It's reinforcing the problem and only pretending to address it. It's objective is to illustrate futility. They don't think government should address the issue but are completely fine with officials' actions that benefit those in their tier and that contribute to campaigns. People don't care how rich someone else is if their basic needs are addressed and are compensated fairly in terms of their contributions to society and the work that they do.
Solution: Get bullets, staple crop seeds, animals and a secure bunker. Buy things that make good trade material in a world without money. Learn to farm, fish, and shoot. Get a vehicle that runs on diesel. Don't have kids if you don't already.
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"The middle class is barely indistinguishable from the poor"
So I guess the poor are doing pretty good.
Both sides recognize the issue of money in government. Unfortunately, one side still thinks government is the answer.
+Neo Morpheus Read this comment for a nice 2 second summary of a 20+ minute "debate".
"You want better education...look, it's going to be hard to do that without government"
Husband and wives do it everyday at home for their children! Private schools do it, even for the poor through scholarships and other means. Public education is the mess it is precisely BECAUSE it is public.
Now how much does this family's standard of living decrease, since now only 1 parent can work while the other does homeschooling? Compare this decrease in standard of living to that of decrease in S.O.L. for the rich who pay the taxes for public schooling. From 20 million a year to 12 million...does that really make a big difference in your quality of life if you don't have a spending problem?
rmand139 If a drop in the standard of living concerns the family, they should send their kid to a privately-managed school, with the help of scholarships, grants, tax breaks, or other financial support. Likewise, a family can hire a babysitter/guide if they want to in order to facilitate a child through the process of learning with their inherit curiosity, which has formed the basis of the "unschooling" movement (solving the problems faced with homeschooling).
Hope this helps. Please send me more questions if you need help. :-)
+rmand139 You have no clue as to what you are talking about. Do you even know anyone who homeschools?
Death24 I home school and make it work and am financially stable. My kids average 2 grades higher than public schooled children. Private schooling would also do better: there are multiple reasons why. One we can into if you ever read this post.
"I don't see anything wrong with taking away..."
And there's the problem, buddy.
I read the "and there's the problem, buddy" in a jordan peterson voice.
I wish all political and economic arguments where this civil. But cordiality seems to be amiss in most instances.
Well said, dendi.
The old guy was actually throwing some pretty low barbs out early on to try and fish for a reaction.
Of course it was civil. They all work for Learn Liberty which is Koch brothers funded via IHS.
"Europe has prospered with much lower inequality and good services for the poor" is that why they are in a economical crisis?
"..wealth itself gives advantages to people.." this is the thought process of a socialist. The problem with this absurd statement (along with everything else this guy said) is that there is no solution to those problems other than force (which is not a solution.. only another problem). Discrimination? How do you solve that? Pass laws? I had no idea that laws could make people like other people. Anti-discrimination laws protect those people who are discriminatory, nothing more! They don't help the disadvantaged! And you cannot "solve" the problem of people having an advantage because they have more wealth any other way than by taking wealth from them and giving it to others.. but in a free market that wealth was not gained from theft... it was gained from trade.. by offering something to someone that they wanted in exchange for something the purchaser valued less. And if you do this you destroy the very incentives that create wealth in the first place. Wealth is NOT something that just exists! It must be created first!
What income redistribution really means is "that you give the lower class what they were already entitled to?" wow...
If I work really hard all my life and manage to earn and save millions of dollars, I'll be damned if I'm going to let anyone stop me from passing it on to my kids and family in such a way that they healthily challenged to work for their own goals, but have the money in reserves for what they need if they need it.
At the root of this discussion is this: the high end of the scale can, in theory, always get higher -- but zero is always zero. The so-called "gap" is always magnified by the fact that the bottom will never be greater than zero.
Exactly. The person I am talking to refueses to believe that over time, people do eventually make it to the top 20%. It is not about winning the lottery, although some people do. It is about working hard, and time. If you work hard long enough, there is no doubt in my mind you will be in the top 20% if you are also smart and not waste your money.
There's a difference between taking from some to give to others, and just taking from some so they have less. I interrupted him as saying the second.
The problem with the inequality of today is that it is in many cases ill gotten through government subsidies, bail-outs, money-printing, patents and copyright. Removing the barriers for people to work and trade and soon the wealth will be redistributed. No force required.
It may actually increase inequality, yet decrease poverty. But, in any case, only the privileged would be so arrogant as to impose more poverty on poor people for the sake of equality. Yet that is something many elites, at least in effect, actually support. A few have even said they’re fine sacrificing the poor for such a collective goal. In fact, that’s practically the definition of historical progressivism. It’s much more a chance to punish a class of people for the sin of success, and very little to do with helping the poor.
Actually, historical progressivism is more complicated than that. It's more like it uses the envy of people (hoping to hurt the wealthy) to privilege the largest companies (in exchange for political support from them), at the expense of the largest companies' competitors. And, to be honest, that's pretty much the name of the game for the last 100 years.
Furthermore, wealth has a certain degree of gravitational pull, meaning that those who already have wealth have a much easier time accumulating even more, as they have the benefits of high interest rates when lending money and low interest rates when borrowing money. As well as all the political and legal benefits of being part of the upper crust.
This difference is what people are protesting and the reason for why they demand a more leveled playing field.
"money is a claim on everybody's labor" -- hahahahahaha ..... NOT a claim on anything!!!!! means of exchange yes, store of value yes, claim NO
Nobody says wealth trickles down. They say if you tax less, things will trickle down and that is a fact. When taxes are down, companies take more risk because they have more money. They are more likely to expand, to try and conquer, and to innovate. It does by definition trickle down. I have yet heard anybody say "wealth trickle down" without saying something else.
Extensive redistribution the government and may benefit those receiving the money but it certainly doesn't benefit those being heavily taxed. i would also argue that those receiving the redistributed wealth are harmed more than benefited regardless. Being told you deserve something you didn't earn doesn't do you any good.
i grew up in adverse poverty with a drug addicted mother and a father in prison... i took it upon my self to better my life.. i worked hard, multiple jobs, payd cash for my collage education and my car.. ive been homeless and ive been hungry. but i never gave up. i know own and operate my own business and im pretty much debt free. success take's initiative, drive, and above all else, either a good idea or business plan.
I love it. Claim 1) The government is controlled by the wealthy. Claim 2) The wealthy are not willing to give their wealth to the poor. Claim 3) Inequality is too great. Solution: get government to take the wealth from the rich and give it to the poor. And he can't see the problem here... My forehead is getting raw from being facepalmed.
I left out a word or had a typo. my point was that with will be taken from people who earned it and at least sometimes given to people who absolutely don't deserve it. That is wrong. Who had the authority or wisdom to redistribute anyway? I wouldn't trust anyone with that much power.
I was always a huge fan of Dr. Horwitz. Was legitimately sad at his passing. RIP
1. We should hale & embrace inequality, not apologize for it! To be an individual being means to be unequal. The more unequal you & I get means the more we separate ourselves against the environment as beings. A man's pursuit of inequality should not be infringed by the environment / "societal expectations".
Here is the rule of thumb that always becomes apparent: If a policy reduces the average individual's choices, then the policy tends to hurt the population as a whole. If a policy increases the average individual's choices, then the policy tends to benefit the population as a whole.
It always makes me laugh so much when people say "I'm skeptical of government but you cant do lets say education without it". Its one or the other man because the Freedom of the Individual and Government as we know it today can not coexist. Very small and limited government is all you need to keep mans freedom free. Which basically means the United States Constitution/Bill of Rights. All we need and are every getting closer to establishing is a Libertarian/Classical Liberal Society through technology. The only thing that concerns me is my generations willingness to say "we don't trust the government in our social lives but we want them to control and regulate the economic side of society". You cant separate the two because your social and economic freedom and liberties go hand in hand.
The other guy nailed it. "Progressive taxation, universal healthcare, free education, that is how you do it, look at Nordic countries, the most free, stable countries in history". If u want more detailed statistical facts, take a few seconds to google average living standards & quality of life index in those countries. There is no way to deny this without looking foolish
You can't just take the % of wealth into account you need to take consider the overall amount of wealth, technological advancements, and changes in living standards. And keep in mind the economic Pie doesn't stay the same, it's almost constantly growing so even though that 80% control a smaller percent of the Pie their piece of the pie may still be larger overall than the 20% before. The waning middle class is partly due to government (dis)incentives. Another important note Money isn't wealth.
I love how the Rawlsian dominated the Libertarian :)
Nevertheless, Nozick's Night Watchman state is no less utopian than Rawls' own Overlapping Consensus on fundamental matters of justice as given by his own doctrine of Justice as Fairness. They're both Ideal Theory all the way down, which I don't find too problematic insofar as 'utopian' is seen to be synonymous with 'impossible' - unachievable ideals still can mark progress in some cases. Utopianism doesn't guarantee failure.
No one dominated anyone in this argument though. Someone who feels more inclined towards the idea that inequality isn't fundamentally unfair wouldn't necessarily have been swung by Reiman's arguments.
Agreed. I take issue with how much power and influence the wealthiest of people have. I don't have an issue with parents choices having an effect on their childrens lives. By working to negate advantages and remove disadvantages from everyones life you're removing consequences from their choices and restricting freedom and free will. As parents people have a great responsibility and must take it seriously. Provide everyone with a base of resources but don't punish those who reach beyond.
if you paid attention he said there needs to be some inequality to create incentives. The appropriate amount of inequality would be just enough to keep people motivated to strive for bettering themselfs.
Wealth inequality is fine in my book, Income inequality is another issue. Wealth means you saved smart. Not being paid fairly is different. I don't know what any given job is actually worth but I think people should be able to live off of what they earn.
There are a few premises here:
1. the society as a whole is wise because of the collective decision making, but is ineffective because of individual selfishness.
2. most of the individuals in a society are dumb because of lack of education(on decision making, not on work skills).
3. a few individuals in a society are smart as oppose to #2(which make them that 1%).
These two guys are basically arguing about what that 1% are doing with their resources. The ideal case is that, those 1% are all really good people and care about the society, so they spend their resources on the society and make it better. However, the truth is that part of the 1% are not good people and they just want to do everything possible to keep their privileges by any means necessary(good or bad). Now this is when government comes into play. And there are a few types of governments, the ideal one is a government in which the leaders are the people from that 1% who are not selfish. The worst ones are the governments in which the leaders are either the 1% who are selfish or some dumb people who cannot make smart decisions.
So what makes a government that's close to the ideal case? We need each individual to be as educated(on decision making) as possible. Then we need to use the society's collective decision making (democracy) to pick out those 1% who can lead the society to the better side. And last, we need a justice system that can make sure those 1% stay consistently good.
The present situation in the US is that, people are not educated about decision making(we vote blindly and follow the "crowd", we are not educated enough on each party's policy, and we are not educated enough on the political system so we cannot make good decisions). In other words, we cannot pick good leaders. Second we do not have a good enough justice system to keep the leaders good(a good justice system will have ways to make sure the leaders stay on track).
the guy on the left forgot to mention how unions also buy candidates to get special favors and treatment.
+Jorge Diaz That is a very reasonable point. Can you cite some specific instances of that?
+Learn Liberty www.opensecrets.org/industries/indus.php?ind=l1300
The guy totally lost me when he said (23:05): "I don't see that it is so bad to take away the advantage that some rich kids get. What's wrong with that?"
Really scary
He's right I do disagree with not giving people the freedom to give as much to their offspring as they can/want.
1) Freedom > Equality
2) There are very moral ways of passing entire positive enterprises on to your offspring.
But in the middle of the video I was pondering: maybe it would be most moral to leave it up to your immediate offspring to worry about their immediate offspring, etc.
The easiest way to improve education is to get the government out of the way ideally removing it from education entirely. For related arguments see Andrew Bernstein work on Privatizing Education, The Objective Standard's article The New Abolition: Why Education Abolition is the Moral Imperative of Our Time and The Cato Institute's Center for Educational Freedom.
It happened with the wholesale of our politicians who then systematically took down every security measure in our legislation that was put in place to prevent another Great Depression one by one. Elizabeth Warren has spoken about this many times, if these laws were still in place in this time, there would be no ambiguity about whether these bankers broke the law, they would have been tried and jailed already for fed crimes.
Being born with the advantage of wealth carries a greater certainty of future wealth than those who are born with intangible advantages such as intelligence or musical ability. Intelligence or music ability is not a sure-fire way for success, as success often times requires a great deal of luck and determination. Its the difference between being born 5 meters away from the finish line and being able to maybe run to the finish line faster than other people.
The actual problem is not inequality but that a good portion of the income distributed to those at the top is unearned, is derived because of the systems of law and taxation that favors rent-seeking over the production of goods and services. There is, in effect, a redistribution of wealth from producers to non-producing rentier interests. Caring societies have since the second half of the 20th century implemented social programs designed to mitigate the worst consequences of the underlying systemic problems but have not come close to removing rentier privilege.
A few economists have endeavored to challenge the status quo and challenge the ideological bias expressed by those on the Right and on the Left. Two who stand out are Joseph Stiglitz and Michael Hudson. However, the one economist who has for more than a half century written consistently on these issues is Mason Gaffney (emeritus professor of economics, University of California). A volume in honor of Mason Gaffney was published recently with the title "Rent Unmasked." This title essentially says all that is necessary to say. If we want a justice distribution of income and wealth the solution is to change the way government at all levels raises revenue, moving away from the taxation of wages, salaries, commerce and tangible goods, and begin to collect the rent of land and land-like assets.
7.25 is the minimum wage. 7.25 times 40 hours a week times 52 weeks equals $15,080. The federally defined poverty line for the contiguous United States is $11,170 for a single person. That means that unless you have kids, it's not possible to work full time and be below the poverty line.
This reflects the constant debate between the orientation of justice as a process (i.e., the non-aggression principle, applied to all, so that heterogeneous people will likely make diverse choices and "inequality" will result) and justice as an outcome (i.e., trying to bring about "equality," but only by allowing some to exceptionally use aggression to get there - and then the inequality becomes one of power, even if the society is paraded as "classless").
I can't seem to find your most recent comment and I can honestly say that I am proud of you for doing the math. Yes not everybody will be in the top 20%, that is why the numbers is 20%, but if you did do the math, then you can see that accumulating 1.7 million per household and a little less than 1 million per person by the time he/she retires is not a long ways off. Congratulations for digging deeper into the truth instead of sticking to those meaningless statistics.
While over-borrowing exist, it don't mean the end of time. Also to say Austrians don't make models is basically saying that a group of economist don't use math. It is a) completely untrue they make model and test them, and see if historical data fits their predictions and b) if they didn't use math and modelling it would make them completely worthless economist almost by definition.
THE DISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH IS UNEVEN
SO IS THE WORK ETHIC, SWEAT, CREATIVITY, IMAGINATION, RISK TAKING, DISCIPLINE, PLANNING, HONESTY, INTELLIGENCE, MATURITY, ETC
I became confused because with any economic inequality there will be political and judicial inequality. You can take away the power of the government. But without changing the nature of our law system and political systems. More money will always yield more lawyers. More money will always yield more campaign commercials, and posters. So...how does getting rid of government restrictions possibly fix this issue?
By not allowing monopoly laws and regulations be established and getting rid of them. The same rich people are always on top because they have the government to protect them from competition. Once you take the government away from them they are vulnerable to loose capitalism from the lower class. A lot of the times the poor are in favor of those laws without noticing its doing more harm to them than good just because it sounds good on paper, Example: affordable healthcare act(obamacare). Thats is why some people believe no government at all is the answer but that's hard to sell even for a libertarian myself. I believe the best mechanism is informing and educating people around me as much as possible to change their hearts and minds of the proper role of government so they can vote responsibly.
Iziah Thompson
I disagree since over 99% of all monopolies throughout history has been created or sustain through a legislative regulatory or a mandate. If you want to challenge me that then name me at least 3 monopolies that had been successful in sustaining through a free market principal. In order to abuse human rights you must use force, someone volunteering to work in a area with no a/c below the minimum wage is not consider to be abusing human rights. My uncle has work in those conditions and now he owns his own pluming company.
"The paradox wouldn't exist if one could work hard and reach the top (I'm talking about mobility)" Well of course not like i explained early, government has always been there to prevent rather than getting out of the way. Its funny how some people judge policies by its intentions rather than its affects. Once you have proof when mobility has been restrictively low with minimal to no regularities and the government being a proper size of only taking 10% scope, then you don't have an argument to stand on.
whenever people try to argue economics through a moral, philosophical viewpoint, they never fail to make blunder after blunder. basic ones too.
This shouldn't be a debate, all one has to do is look out one's window to see that we still have starving, homelessness, a failed education system, a failed labor law system, and a system of checks and balances that doesn't work. We also have a media that wants to portray the inequality as a whole bunch of whiners who want something that's not their's, when they know darned well that's not the issue people are pointing to in this debate. The issue is manipulated legislation.
Its interesting that he thinks people are morally entitled to wealth. Does anyone know how one could come to this conclusion? And if so, what is the limiting principle?
You know who is the best off? Switzerland, Singapore, and HongKong. They are the richest, most free, healthiest, and happiest people on this planet. They have lots of inequality, but the difference is, the rich did not steal for it like they do in cronyism. The rich worked for it and in consequence made everybody better off.
Even though he says that he is suspicious of government, Reiman talks about correcting an imperfect society with a perfect government. If you think it's okay to redistribute wealthy people's money to those without the same political and legal clout as the very rich, what makes you think that those rich won't simply use their political buying power to turn your plans into something that just makes them richer?
I never said poor people can't live off of what they earn. I don't know where you got that from.
I was just addressing jackryan's sentiment that everyone deserves to live off what they earn, no matter how hard they work.
CEO's pay is the subject we are discussing correct. The lack of qualified CEO's is what drives the salary.Companies were losing money right before the crash which dis-spells your argument that CEO's were paid for previous periods.
Great debate. Good points brought up on both sides. Why can't we have more discussions about the issues like this? It's a shame that most of the time, the "debate" is two people shouting each other down on a 24 hour news show that gets cropped and edited into clips to market for the program.
No, politically speaking, a liberal is someone who holds the ideological beliefs of liberalism. Within the political sphere, a liberal and a conservative are terms used to describe ideological positions, not general attitudes. In the US it seems there is confusion over some of the political terminology, which can be slightly annoying.
Point one - If government did not insert itself into markets there would be no incentives attracting wealth to politicians.
Point two - The majority never had control of the government, nor were they intended to. Our founders created a representative republic, not a democracy. Our Founders feared no such thing, though many of them feared the influence of a central bank, and they were right.
Why cannot we access the link at 23:29 that continues this debate? It says the video is private.
"Discrimination is clearly wrong." Not necessarily. Ask yourself this: Why is it ok for people to discriminate when looking for a place to work, a place to shop or when looking to date someone but it all of a sudden becomes wrong when you discriminate in hiring someone?
Yes, that would be nice, wouldn't it? To live in a world where no matter how hard you work, how long you work, or what you do, you will STILL be able to live off of what you earn.
Unfortunately, the real world doesn't work that way. The only way a worker is going to make that much money is if he makes his EMPLOYER that much money. Some jobs are not very profitable, so that worker can't expect to make much money doing that job.
Workers need to give business owners a PROFIT.
In a Free market we've already voted on the level of income and wealth distribution, trough the actions we make every day. This is process far better reflecting what is just and right than having a government redistribute along arbitrary lines. Income inequality is never a problem, the problems are merely unfair advantages given by the state.
And I don't believe every child has the same right to the same education. That's up for the parents to provide best they can
The US has two major problems when it comes to this. Suppressing free markets allowing the rich to remain rich and the poor without the opportunity to do so and a lack of liberated and accountable educational systems. Right these two wrongs to have a real free and fair market for all and have education choice and limitless learning growth then we will see a major improvement.
John Rawls acceptance that some equality is ok if its justified is flawed in that it presupposes and authority to decide what is the acceptable limit of inequality.
I'll tell you guys the same thing I tell my kids. Nobody is equal, and the world is not fair.
Why are people like Joseph Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, or Dean Baker so incredible?
this is what people need to understand... why is it that my grandfather, and my mother (single mom) worked so hard to provide for THEIR FAMILY, but im entering a era where i have to worry about other peoples access to healthcare instead of having the opportunity to build my life and my assets so i can provide for my family one day instead of having to rely on a government program
Does providing fresh water, after privatising it, count as providing value and things "people wnat"? Or is it scavenging necessary resources we have no choice but taking?
I recommend you play the game of substituting "fresh water" with different nouns.
See where that takes you.
Help Me spread the word PEOPLE, enough is enough!!!!! Imbalance has ran long enough!!! Let's calibrate the scales and get things LEVELed!!!! 10% IS NOT enough!!!
Spread the KNOWLEDGE to even the scores!!!
To Mr. Reiman: What is the point of earning money and working hard if you cannot share it with your children, family, and other loved ones? If you take away some of the major advantages of working hard for your money, then there is little point in working.
How about defining what the word "fair" means, before we start asking questions about whether something is fair or not?
Question: why is a religion and philosophy prof talking about an issue of economic equality?
Discrimination by the individual one can not change, Discrimination by the government should not exist.
Even if an employer were to discriminate based on race or sexual orientation, it's not something we don't already tolerate from other members of society. Colleges discriminate with racial quotas, for example. When dating, someone might insist on a member of the same race. My point is, why is it only employers that are forbidden from making voluntary arrangements with whoever they choose, even if they have bad reasons for doing so?
Nobody is buying up all the water rights in the United States. Even if they did, we could also import water. There are also personal water purification systems that would become cost effective if people over charged for fresh water. Monopolies with absolute power are nothing but a myth.
On the publicly funded campaigns - what happens when we have 30 people running for a congressional district? 10 per party per primary? What about the parties not in the "big two"? Including all parties, with all the primaries, and all the candidates - that is HUGE money. All the TV time is taken up just showing debates! Every two years?? Plus, the INCUMBENT has a big advantage in this scenario. And whoever the newspapers and tv like gets more/free coverage - do they get limited too? BAD IDEA
Incorrect bankruptcy code was reorganized in 2005 to stop executive payouts during bankruptcies; under chapter 11 bankruptcy code.
The philosopher, Professor Jeffrey Reiman deals the knockout blow against the economist when he states that too much inequality can be measured by other countries, Europe. And, the disarming the argument of redistribution of taxes is not stealing when you are taking back their money.
I just saw a guy use this same graph to show tax inequality, not plain financial inequality. :/
I was willing to give Prof. Reiman the benefit of the doubt, until he said "redistribution doesn't mean (morally) that you take what belongs to the rich to give it, like Robin Hood, to the poor - it means that you give to the poor what they were always entitled to in justice." So, as long as I couch the utter violation of property rights in the arbitrary, vague language of "social justice", there are no moral or ethical repercussions?
We're all equal? Actually, we're all completely different and unique. We're all equal in the sense that we all have the natural right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Just wealth is the result of voluntary, and thus presumably mutually beneficial, transactions. Those who justly become wealthy have provided a benefit to others. Their economic power is meritocracy.
The "inequality" premise seems to be that wealth deprives others, whereas in fact just wealth expands the opportunities for others. It isn't a zero-sum game, but win-win.
If you sell me your car (equality-preserving), and I destroy it, should you give me half the money back to restore equality?
I could go into a long explanation of my position on this topic but it can simply be put this way, you get what you earn.
Sadly, this sort of personal responsibility is lost in much of society.
Success also requires resources. As in MONEY. As in scholarships, decent schools, good coaches, the tools to learn. We've got kids out there who could revolutionize the world...but they'll never get to touch a computer, much less own one. They start working as soon as it's legal, at a minimum wage job, just to help keep their families alive.
No one is talking about absolute equality of income. But when 5% of Americans own as much as the next 95% COMBINED.....something is very, very wrong.
Conservatives are not liberals, that's why conservatives are called conservatives. Liberal by English definition means they are open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values. Conservationism means holding on to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion. I think what you are trying to describe is libertarian; people who put freewill and liberty at the forefront of society.
Redistribution is troublesome because beginning a policy with theft will never end well.
(Note: Not all taxes are theft, but redistribution is complete theft).
It is very obvious that Mr. Jeffrey Reiman is a philosopher. He raises important points of consideration; however, I think many of them are a bit irrelevant and a bit to vague. Life isn't fair. People are born with genetic, financial, and all kinds of other advantages or disadvantages every day. You can't give everyone an identical starting point. It is only reasonable for you to give them equal opportunity to overcome any disadvantages they have... Great discussion!
In other words; giving money to poor isn't as important as preventing the rich from hording money.
You seem to have missed my point. I was saying that while completely different people may take their place, they have the same social status and privileges as the people they've replaced. I can't see a child from a poor family becoming influential unless it's an extremely uncommon thing (at any rate far, far less common than rich people and their children becoming influential.)
There is a correlation between inequality and violence, and more equal societies are more happy, you can play word games all you want, it doesn't change the facts. Progressive taxation, universal healthcare, free education, that is how you do it, look at nordic countries, the most free, stable countries in history.
so if you don't agree with either of the positions, it's not a debate?
You can go on teachersunionexposed where they actually cite how much the teacher union have given to campaigns. "According to the Reason Foundation, the California Teachers Association has spent more than $200 million on ballot initiatives" This is just in California.
"If you want to have better education, it's gonna be hard to do that without government..." 🤦🏽♂️ 🤦🏽♂️ 🤦🏽♂️
how can you say something like that and expect to be taken seriously as an academic person?? That statement is so wrong I don't understand how anyone could call themselves "educated"
Liam I just made my argument... what do you mean? Ever heard of private schooling or home schooling... there’s your education without government... doesn’t take an Einstein to figure it out lol
It is if the person who asked the question answered it himself, thinking he knew what the answer was without knowing a single thing about this guy.
For private businesses no problem, for public services no way is it acceptable for taxpayers to be subsidizing discrimination practices.
What matters, in the inequality debate, is not whether or not such inequality exists, but why. How did it happen? If it is the result of voluntary interactions, fine. But if it is the result of force (i.e., government "wealthfare" programs to favor those who line the coffers, and government "welfare" programs to ensnare those who seem to give the government legitimacy), it is anathema and should be condemned.
Yes I did do the math. If you take the average income multiply it by 40 years or by the time they retire, they accumulate between 1-4 million dollars of wealth per person. If you have two people it can go between 2-8 million. After taxes and expenditures and assuming that investments are stagnant, even though historically speaking you make money, many people do end up in the top 20% bracket. Not to mention as people get older, they get paid more.
This isn't a debate. It's reinforcing the problem and only pretending to address it. It's objective is to illustrate futility. They don't think government should address the issue but are completely fine with officials' actions that benefit those in their tier and that contribute to campaigns.
People don't care how rich someone else is if their basic needs are addressed and are compensated fairly in terms of their contributions to society and the work that they do.
The same issue with intellectuals that do not understand how markets work, and what is the problem with politics. The philosopher has this problem.
Freedom > Equality
Right on. Thanks for sharing REALITY.
These are great videos. How a debate should be conducted. Thank you.
Solution: Get bullets, staple crop seeds, animals and a secure bunker. Buy things that make good trade material in a world without money. Learn to farm, fish, and shoot. Get a vehicle that runs on diesel. Don't have kids if you don't already.