Concurrently, I imagine some Treasury staff are nervous about similar demands to "help out" from up in the org-chart. Using US government assets for private gain without Congressional approval is often 10-years-in-prison territory. (Ex: 18 U.S.C. § 641 and nearby sections.)
And then the other party that claims anyone who's done better than anyone else is necessarily immoral.
It's a lose lose situation.
And the are the American people. Both sides demand ideological purity while doing very little to affect the material conditions of common Americans
This is both a strawman and dismissing a real issue. Inequality is a real problem that has a corrosive effect on democracy. Also, American liberals have done little if nothing to reduce the gross inequality in this country.
So no, the guy that said “nothing will fundamentally change” is not helping reduce inequality nor demanding ideological purity in that regard.
> Also, American liberals have done little if nothing to reduce the gross inequality in this country.
Well yeah but they also support chaos agents who do. I mean you are correct. Liberals do nothing to help the common man and then, when the common man riots, they do nothing to protect the well to do men either.
So it's pretty obvious to see why everyone dislikes them
I need not enumerate the reasons people dislike Republicans
I think we actually agree on most things; I generally agree with all the rest of your points. Liberals may as well be controlled opposition now.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_Unite...
The European countries cannot pay for their own defense and rely on America, thus their definition of even existing as nations is up for debate really. They're more like protectorates of the United States. If they actually had to pay for the defense resources they consume, they would quickly fail.
Canada is similar to a degree and while it is its own country, really depends on the US to protect its basic existence
Japan is dying as is Korea.
Australia and NZ maybe but they're having real economic trouble and are nothing to emulate.
Ironically it's the fact that our economy is forced to be large enough to pay for everyone else's defense that forces the economy into more inequality than there would be were America only responsible for its own sovereignty.
Basically, if other countries had robust economies that were strong enough to provide for its own defense, they would be as unequal as the United States since inequality happens as economies grow and the benefits are not shared.
If you can show me a real country that provides for its own defense and does not depend on America that is more equal then please. Off the top of my head there are really only a few countries that even meet the criteria of being independent states. Of those, Russia, China, and India are the only important ones. Maybe Iran. Literally none of these are countries to emulate. America has higher social mobility than all of them, which is what really matters, not the difference between the richest and poorest
> Ironically it's the fact that our economy is forced to be large enough to pay for everyone else's defense that forces the economy into more inequality than there would be were America only responsible for its own sovereignty.
This is the part I’m not fully understanding. Are you saying it’s because the US is forced to spend more on defense leaving fewer resources to reduce inequality? I don’t see how suspect people like Musk are a necessary outcome of this paradigm... I do get that there is an insane amount of money pumped into the military-industrial complex though.
If you take the (naive) perspective that returning to a higher level of taxation on the most wealthy would increase government income, reducing inequality is just a beneficial side-effect there.
Edit: I apparently missed your point about inequality correlating to the size of an economy. Are you saying it’s not possible to have an economy as large as the US with less inequality than is currently present?
My claim is that America's technical dominance is due to its defense spending which leads to their being a larger economy and thus more inequality as some players win and some lose. Inequality means the rich get richer which is a thing that happens in a self propelling economy.
We see the same thing in other independent nations like China, India, and Russia who, unlike Europe and the anglosphere, have independent markets.
No it's not impossible to have a market the size of ours with less inequality. You could have more people all of whom are poorer. But for our population yes. We are the richest nation in the history of the world. The onus is actually on you to show beyond a reasonable doubt it can be done another way. The data we do have indicate that, even per capita, it would be impossible unless we had another country willing to spend money to alleviate our own governments mandate.
> That’s a really interesting argument that I hadn’t considered
With all due respect, then maybe you should sit and listen? Because this has been the main rallying cry of all the MAGA politicians. Look, I'm not even a huge Trump fan ( I voted for him once, but don't really like him, and still don't and hope we can all overcome this time as a country). But like, the Democrats simply don't listen.
Many poor Americans are mad America's funds go to help other countries while our own domestic needs are unmet. Meanwhile, those countries lecture us. While many here may have thought Vance's insistence that Zelensky thank America was asinine and crude, to many Americans, it expressed decades of frustration with European fecklessness. Were it not for the fact that most Americans trace ancestry to Europe, I think Europe would be much less developed.
I am aware of MAGA arguments and the continued expenditure of large amounts of money on other countries. I don’t think you have connected that well to inequality however.
I’m surprised that you treat the current way things are done in this country as monolithic. There are countless parameters to play with here… not just “what we have always done” and “throw all of that out and do everything different”.
> No it's not impossible to have a market the size of ours with less inequality.
Good, we agree on this.
I don't really need to. I made a statement on how people feel. This is a common complaint you hear from MAGA supporters. Whether it's real or not really has no bearing on how people vote. In a democracy, representatives ought to listen to their constituents. One issue that's really common on the democrat side is they attempt to disagree with their constituents. This is why republican representatives and governors tend to be more popular. You can dismiss this as populism. It totally is. But, I mean, how can the democrats claim to be in favor of equality if they literally believe the average voter (presumably the one that deserves equality with 'the elite') needs to be lectured down to?
Not trying to be incensed, just asking the obvious questions. Me personally, I'm by all measures what people would consider the 'elite'. I don't really care either way personally. I'll be fine.
> Good, we agree on this.
Yeah, if America's economy were allowed to simply be, and we had less global involvement (including migration), then our economy would shift back to a normal human distribution of inequality. As it is, we are the world's guarantor of stability. For Europe, this includes military protectionism. But for all the world, including India and China, we take their most ambitious people here because they cannot handle them (historically, these countries end up killing their elite every few hundred years). Thus, we end up with extremely rich people. This is true of Trump's family as well. Clearly, his family had what it takes to make a ton of money and be wealthy. And Germany couldn't handle that so they sent them to America.
At the end of the day, it's the American immigration system and the American global police state (which are actually the same thing) that force America's economy into being more acutely unequal.
So US farmers lost a decent market for a crop they mostly grow as crop rotation with Corn which is going to require them either getting bailed out or going to the wall while the same president is backing up the country that made bank from the shift in China buying US soybeans.
I've no dog in the fight - not American, Argentine or Chinese but it feels like a weird deal for a guy who "wrote" a book called "The Art of the Deal" no?
It makes more sense when you realize he doesn't actually give a rats ass about "Making America Great Again". He is only looking to enrich himself, other rich people and advance his ideology. And for that last part he can't have Milei fail after so vocally supporting him and sacrificing tax payer money for that is something he doesn't have to think twice about doing. In that sense it would be a perfect deal for him and his allies.
That Overton window keeps getting narrower and narrower on that side. I’m wondering if it even lets any light in anymore.
zerosizedweasle•3mo ago