Come on man
Rent is money. Just say what you mean in like a couple sentences so I can understand what you are actually trying to say.
That money has everything to do with it, and insurance companies spend a lot of money to make sure things stay this way.
It’d be a lot easier to live without money in the USA if it weren’t increasingly illegal to do so.
But like catface pointed out, the minimalist lifestyle thing is a long way from money has a huge amount of political power thing.
Was just about to look for that story.
I am sometimes too charitable with people, it is true. To be clear, though, my mistake was thinking that the slogan was less dumb than it truly is. This interview with the guy who apparently invented the slogan was pretty enlightening.
Dylan Matthews
Where did the phrase “every billionaire is a policy failure” come from?
Dan Riffle
I saw that Sean [McElwee, a political activist] had [created] #AbolishICE and that caught fire for a while and started a movement. I think the most pressing issue in the country is wealth and income inequality, and wanted to draw attention to that. I was trying to come up with a phrase to define a policy that would address that. I started with, “Tax income over $5 million at 99 percent.” That’s not exactly a succinct phrasing of the issue; it doesn’t roll off the tongue.
So I bounced around a couple of other different ideas, and then eventually, it’s “Every billionaire is a policy failure.” It still wasn’t as succinct as #AbolishICE, but it defined the problem. It wasn’t just, “Every billionaire is a greedy asshole,” which is true, but doesn’t necessarily address the role that society has in the problem and the solution to it.
This really has everything. The hashtag-activism-envy frame story is delightful. The idea that an 8-word slogan is too cumbersome and needs to be boiled down to 6. The recognition that you need to appear to say more than just “Every billionaire is a greedy asshole,” coupled with the delusion that you can paper that over by just invoking the word “policy.” The vagueness is actually pretty interesting. “Billionaires should have their loot taken away” is an objectively better slogan. It’s a word longer, which is bad, but quite a bit clearer and, most importantly, explains what the actual proposal is. “Billionaires are greedy assholes.” is clearer too. The vagueness of “policy failure” is actually doing a lot of work, along Politics-and-the-English-Language lines. It would be unpopular to say that you want to grab people’s money. No, no, there’s simply been a failure of policy here. We’ve failed to have a policy of taking people’s money away.
What, exactly, is so stupid about this? It’s obviously true, unless you want to quibble and point out that really we should have taken the money before they accumulated a billion dollars in the first place.
Disagree. This is treating the symptoms. “Billionaires are a policy failure” criticizes and wants to remedy a system where someone can hoard enough wealth to become a billionaire in the first place. This is treating the disease.
Edit: billionaire, not millionaire
2 Likes
Wow I mean dude just take the fucking L.
The DELUSION that you can PAPER THAT OVER by just INVOKING the word “POLICY” lololololol
I think we’re agreeing to agree? Standard internet confusion ITT
There are definitely people bleeding out to chronic illnesses that can be treated (but not in an ER). People on this forum even. Some of them may even have insurance.
That’s what I said.