foundations rotten bb

So let's do nothing at all.

How dare you! They made a meme.
I read it as suggesting we should do more, not less.
- It has a hopeless/fatalistic tone. That is off-putting to some of us.
Or we prioritize other objectives first, like gutting corruption and FINDING THE MISSING BILLIONS OF PENTAGON DOLLARS.

There's already a fuck ton of money, it's just misappropriated.
- ¿Por que no los dos?
- Politics is like the bus: it's not likely to take you exactly where you want to go, but it'll get you in the area.
  
  You want to go directly there? You're gonna have to drive yourself.

Yeah, that sucks. I'd rather start somewhere than just throw my hands up and go "well, it's fucked, may as well not try."

My thought is, sure we can tax the rich and make them less rich. But I find it hard to believe that the government is going to magically allocate those resources in a way that actually benefits Joe Schmoe. On top of that, even if you totally liquidated every billionaire, you'd get less than $2k for every person in America. Make it $4k if you only distribute it to the bottom half. Sure, it would be nice and I think billionaires are a scourge, but I don't think it's going to fix the problems people think it will.

Seems to me that the people going on and on about eating the rich would get a lot more done if they focused on achievable policy goals that directly affect their community. I would bet money 95% of the clowns that keep going on about this stuff don't even know who their city councilman is and have never been to a town hall meeting.
- But if you inverse those thoughts or even pull back a bit, it's the same defeatist perspective. "Sure we can allocate taxes better but I find it hard to believe we'll ever be able to tax the rich." These aren't unrealistic changes or even far fetched, it just comes down to informing people and making the change. Most average people don't know what the Military Industrial Complex is or how it works and by telling them and illustrating how bad it is, politicians who'd like to remain politicians might listen to their constituents a little bit more than their wallet. Not entirely but enough.
  
  Eating the rich is just a vivid expression to get the point across. A motto of sorts that just gets the idea across that the ultra wealthy need to be reconstituted into society at large. Be it through harmless proposals of policy and ranging to, well, the French Revolution. You don't need to know who your city councilman is nor your town hall to agree with something and make a change. I personally don't have time to attend a town hall with the oldest people in my county who are more interested complaining about a bakery not being in the right zoning area than change their mind about local taxes.
  
  Change is slow and it starts with education. Being pissy or condescending also isn't a very good way to convince people you're right. If anything, they'll put extra effort into being wrong to spite you.
Doesnt it make more sense to root out the corruption before feeding them cash?
- But it's not about what makes sense. Yes, obviously, the ideal situation would be to make a perfect structure before pulling the lever but we can't be idealist about this. The system will never be perfect so we have to settle with marginal improvements. I'd rather the military industrial complex have the money than the rich because they'll actually spend it. Sure, it's not where I'd like it to be spent but it'll actually trickle down through industries. Can't make a tank without metal, can't get metal without mining, can't mine without workers, so on and so forth.
  
  Next step is aiming that from the complex to something better. Something closer to infrastructure. But it's important to understand these things are done incrementally and rarely all at once.
- Nah, I'd rather shift the tax burden onto the rich first.
- Didn't you grow out of this sorry "logic" in highschool like most everyone else?
- what corruption?
  
  I am a European and i also was of the Opnion that the US spends too much on military. But since the 24th of February, I have had to completely change my Mind. I was in the wrong. THEY were right. The West still needs to fund their Militaries. Because Putin and Xi are not interested in a peaceful world, if they don't pull all the Strings.

this is what a whiney ass Russian says about life.. this is how a coward thinks.. this is what defeat looks like from inside the mind of the loser..

I agree, memes like this act like this isn't a reason to try. It's an illusion to think one solution solves all problems. There are several problems here and having the wealthy pay their share will be part of the solution.
- JFC. Yes, both problems exist, and the barrier to taxing the rich are the cunts in control. Cut them out, then the money will go where it needs to and we have greater control over who gets taxed what.
Oh no, I've been labeled a coward for an unpopular opinion on

checks notes

tax policy

I'm all for taxing the rich, and paying taxes, so long as the funds go to programs that don't blow up children in foreign countries.

Another constructive comment adjusted by view on the matter.
- Just because you can't fix everything at once doesn't mean you shouldn't fix one thing then move onto the next.
  
  Yeah the money won't go where we want it to and that sucks. It's already not going where we want it to. Progress is often achieved in steps.
- all i can do is try to help
- "so long as" is the weak point in your approach, IMO. There are separate problems. If you insist on solving them together, probably you fail to do anything. Work on both, but don't insist on a single grand solution.
- what if your Taxes go to Programs that help Ukraine and Taiwan not be annexed by brutal Dictators?

This meme has been brought to you by an anonymous Asian country's disinformation campaign.

Please give up.

You have been banned from hexhear for unrelated reasons
continues typing furiously from behind the great firewall of china

Did you just manage to roll China with your cyber attribution dice?

This is why we tax and eat them.

Now this is a policy I can get behind.

All military spending comprises ~10-15% of the budget, just a FYI.

The military budget isn’t stopping anything. In 2022, $4.1 Trillion was spent on mandatory programs (social security, Medicare, Medicaid, income security).

Social security, Medicare, and Medicaid alone were just shy of $3 Trillion.

It's still a rediculously large military budget and it's incredible how much we spend on our social programs only for them to still suck ass
- Fixing our social programs would go so far to make things better without even changing anything else at all.
  
  The amount of money spent isn’t the issue, it’s how inefficiently it’s spent.
Admittedly, I thought these percentages were different.

Not above admitting when I'm wrong.

https://www.pgpf.org/budget-basics/budget-explainer-national-defense
- No worries.
  
  A part of that is that there’s the entire budget of all federal outlays and then “the budget” which is what the President requests and Congress authorizes.
  
  That is solely the discretionary spending. It’s unfortunate that it’s the only thing that actually gets talked about in the media.
  
  Related, but interest on the debt is set to pass military spending like next year even.

if the military industrial complex gets rich then they are also taxed

And so the hawkish death cycle continues!

Yeah but it ends up in our hands for a few minutes and that's the point

Not true and even if true I'm ok with it, I love lockmart, nuke the Kremlin.

Any concern for retaliatory strikes? Guess the poor needn't worry about going hungry if they're dust, right?
- Assuming Russian nukes even work.
  
  The Kremlin Gremlin isn't poor. He sure should be dust tho.

Fact: despite popular perception and rhetoric, the government does not actually need to issue taxes pay for things. Taxing the rich does not actually act as a source of revenue; it disincentivizes greater Extremes of price gouging and wage suppression as well as reducing the wealth disparity between the the poor and wealthy.

Your objection is nonsensical, misleading, and damaging to the cause. Good job. 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏

Thanks for sharing a perspective that I hadnt considered. I certainly agree that corporate greed is detrimental and plays a key role in governmental corruption.

If rather have a military armed to the teeth than the super rich getting even richer.

US military is already larger than the 4 next largest militaries worldwide IIRC, so no need to worry about being a paper tiger
Are you suggesting we must choose between monarchy and fascism?
- You can have a well armed military without being fascist?

as opposed to the rich people doing military donations on their own? the spotify ceo invested in fucking AI military killing machines man grow up. you have no control over rich people and they have demonstrated that there is no reason to trust them. the government sucks too, but at least you get to cast a vote on how much it sucks. stop bootlicking

I'm all for taxing the rich, but I'm even more for rooting out the corruption that enables the rich to become the monsters they are. This isn't bootlicking, its holding the opinion that the priorities are out of order.

Thanks for sharing your perspective.

Even stuff like welfare and social benefits help the rich more than the poor. Walmart can have billions of profits while their people make so little they have to apply for aid. If aid wasn't there, they would have to pay proper wages and their profits would be smaller.

Taxing the rich means their money will go straight to government. Just have corporations pay workers more, so it goes straight to the people. Taking the rich is a stupid fucking movement, people should be emphasizing paying the workers more