This year's Year in Review on Gatesnotes is a plea for higher taxes on the rich
https://www.gatesnotes.com/About-Bill-Gates/Year-in-Review-2019
Basically says we should raise the estate taxes, raise capital gains tax, remove the cap on income subject to Medicare tax.
QuoteIn the 1970s, when Paul Allen and I were starting Microsoft, marginal tax rates were almost twice the top rate today. It didn't hurt our incentive to build a great company.
"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the majority discovers it can vote itself largess out of the public treasury. After that, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits with the result the democracy collapses because of the loose fiscal policy ensuing, always to be followed by a dictatorship, then a monarchy."
attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler
The mystery in modern America, however, is how a *minority* discovered it can vote itself largess (or rather, buy the politicians who will do so). At a certain point, the pitchforks come out.
Nick Hanauer's tongue in check letter to "fellow zillionaires" (his : https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2014/06/the-pitchforks-are-coming-for-us-plutocrats-108014
QuoteOur country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.
Imagine a snowpack on a slope. A foot of snow falls, and the pack adjusts. An inch falls, and the pack adjusts. And then the snowpack has done all available adjustment. A snowflake falls, and the snowpack lets loose in an avalanche. People say, "nobody could have predicted that a single snowflake would trigger an avalanche," which is true. But they could predict that the first foot of snow had made the slope unstable.
That is basically the pattern with the unrest in Hong Kong, the unrest in Chile, Arab Spring, the French Revolution, the English Civil War, etc. Sometimes it fizzles, sometimes it doesn't. I do not want to see one of the events that doesn't fizzle happen in my country during my lifetime.
> I do not want to see one of the events that doesn't fizzle happen in my country during my lifetime.
Button up, buttercup.hhh We're close.
Quote from: rcjordan on January 04, 2020, 05:54:49 PM
Button up, buttercup.hhh We're close.
You're going to give me bad dreams. In all seriousness, though, I wonder what actions an individual can take
Relax. You'll be fine out there in the hinterland. You'll eventually get tired of mule deer steaks, but bear meat is ok.
>Button up, buttercup.hhh We're close.
I've pegged you as a nihilist for about a decade now.
One of the major lessons of the twentieth century is that representative democracies and social safety nets are insurance policies for the upper classes.
>representative democracies and social safety nets are insurance policies
Don't forget the military and law enforcement agencies
Quote from: littleman on January 05, 2020, 05:16:14 AM
One of the major lessons of the twentieth century is that representative democracies and social safety nets are insurance policies for the upper classes.
An old friend from college, from a relatively wealthy family, reminded me a few years ago of something I had forgotten. Apparently back then, he was railing about the welfare state and I had said, "Well, the welfare state exists because that is the cheapest way to keep those people out of your living room."
Quote from: rcjordan on January 05, 2020, 01:47:05 PM
Don't forget the military and law enforcement agencies
Meanwhile, one of my favorite professors, who studied and taught about revolutionary France (specializing in later revolutionary movements), quipped once: "When you hear the words 'law and order,' get out of the cities, because they're coming for you."
Quote from: littleman on January 05, 2020, 05:16:14 AM
One of the major lessons of the twentieth century is that representative democracies and social safety nets are insurance policies for the upper classes.
Even late 19th Century. I was watching a documentary about history of Chicago. They pointed out an area that had once been all mansions of the uber rich (most mansions now replaced by swanky high rises) but they indicated the locations of National Guard Armories of the same era which were purposely placed around the mansions to protect them in case of riots or civil uprising. This back in the late 1800's and early 1900's.
Must be nice.