Yes, someone living on $25,000 a year and saving $75,000 per year and investing it in a mutual fund is clearly the problem. Why there ought to be a law.
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Way to completely miss the point. As usual.
Ordinary workers investing their savings in mutual funds isnāt immoral. What the fuck are you talking about.
Stocks are immoral
The system that massively rewards sitting on your fucking ass and making heaps while half the country makes $15 an hour or less is the problem.
Raise the marginal tax rates. Wealth tax. Capital gains tax. Tax the fuck out of Wall Street speculation that creates literally zero tangible value and crashed the economy once already. Strong social safety. Socialize medicine, education, prison, etc.
This country fucking sucks for ~ half of the population. Singling out landlords when a lot people here are angling to squeeze every ounce of value out of their 401K is hypocritical to say the least.
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Agreed
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You and the others railing against landlords and stock ownership are basically arguing for the abolition of private property.
Good luck with that.
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Thanks for mansplaining Marxism to me 
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What does any of that have to do with someone living frugally and saving a large fraction of his income? I guess I agree it is dumb to believe in āabolishingā ālandlordsā while investing in the stock market, but Iām definitely not for abolishing landlords. Whatever the fuck that means.
Itās not like thereās any obstacle to starting housing cooperatives that bypass landlords or mortgages. Landlord isnāt a hereditary title; there isnāt some landlording guild with a decree from the goddamn king or whatever that you have to be a member of to rent out a house to another guy.
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I donāt see why youāre not responsible for what the companies that you own do just because you donāt own much of them. Same goes for companies you buy stuff from. If you really donāt know that they do something bad, then sure, reasonable ignorance is reasonable, but if you know what they do?
As someone with a healthy exposure to the overall US stock market, it would be unwieldy for me to try to invest in only socially responsible companies, whatever that actually means.
Iād prefer to push for candidates who are progressive and willing to fight for protecting and improving the lives of lower SES people.
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The fuck else am I supposed to do? I didnāt set this system up, I just live here. Iām not the one who eliminated pensions ā the only retirement option I have is 401k/Roth and mutual funds. (Of course the eliminated pensions were also invested in the same set of companies).
I suppose I am responsible for what the companies do, in the same way that Chomsky said that he and every other American was responsible for what the US was doing in Vietnam. I guess I could set myself on fire like that one Vietnam protester did? Donāt know if I have the stomach for that tbh.
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Hard to see why Marxism hasnāt taken more of a hold in the US. What with all these exemplary advocates.
Iām sure it is unwieldly and Iām not suggesting in any way that Iām perfect, and Iām sure outlawing immoral companies would make this easier, but Iām not sure how it means youāre not responsible for your share of ownership as things currently stand.
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The same way people who are concerned with climate change continue to eat factory farmed meat and drive gas guzzlers.
Imagine if you will a mid sized city. Thereās a large state university there. The state government has continually frozen or cut funding to the university. As a result the university has accepted more and more out of state and international students who pay higher tuition.
Those out of state and international students are price insensitive to housing costs and of course prefer fancy private student apartments to on campus student housing. The demand for fancy private student apartments would be exploding anyway, but the city provides massive tax incentives specifically for the fancy private student apartments.
Almost all the occupants of the fancy private student apartments are white. A few are Asian, primarily rich Chinese. How many drugs and how many petty crimes do you think this cohort are doing? The rent checks always clear though. Imagine instead the resources and political will had gone toward affordable housing for working people.
Chads is 100 percent correct about everything he said. Ins0 is smart for making a living off of a broken system that isnāt going to changeā¦
I didnāt actually ask you to do anything. Hereās a related aside: the chocolate industry uses a lot of literal slavery. I eat chocolate. Thatās immoral of me. It affects how much chocolate I eat, but I still eat non-fair-trade chocolate. I think eating meat is horrible too - and Iām not a vegetarian. But, anyway, on both fronts I do make some kind of effort to be less bad. Also, even if I gorge on meat and chocolate, I donāt pretend itās not immoral.
Much more so. You are born here and citizenship is forced upon you. You are coerced into supporting our Vietnams. You are free to invest your money directly in companies or activities you think arenāt doing anything nearly that bad. You could buy property, pay people to build a house on it, and then rent it out to someone who needs a place to live for example. Better than allowing part of your retirement to be invested in Raytheon.
I suggest we change the title of this thread to āCommunist Wishes and Cavier Dreams.ā
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So I could take up a part time job landlording (!) or I can live with the great moral burden of owning a few hundred dollars worth of defense contractor stocks? Iām fine with my choice.
In case I wasnāt clear, the amount of drug use and crimes committed there would put any section 8 housing complex to absolute shame.
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