I know right? You mean step aside after $1 Billion and let someone else make money? The horror!
Billionaires all seem to think they’re the reason for the world’s greatest economy, as opposed to a product of it.
Like the economy would be shite w/o Cuban creating broadcast.com and selling it to the idiots at Yahoo. I know I spend all my time on broadcast.com. Indispensable.
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He’s literally Russ Hanneman from Silicon Valley.
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I was really disappointed in the last episode that the person who had to get screwed in the Hooli deal wasn’t Hanneman. That was a big missed opportunity, in my opinion.
It’s not just that they’re getting attacked for being billionaires, it’s that it’s a woman doing it. Bernie has been berning billionaires for 5 years on the public stage, they don’t go fucking crying about it on CNBC, but a woman doing it, pass the kleenex.
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Yeah this is the big problem right here:
The markets have been experiencing record highs recently. Cuban said this is because the biggest companies are creating the most wealth.
This is patently fucking untrue if you think about it for even half a second. I used the example of WhatsApp the other day. Facebook bought it for 19 billion a few years back, I guess it’s probably worth more now. You would have to be out of your goddamn mind to think WhatsApp created 19 billion in wealth, as opposed to cornering the market and benefiting from wealth that was going to get created one way or another. I can’t find it now, but I once read a popular economics book written by a guy who had made a bet against another economist that if you had invested in railroad companies during the railroad boom (which created enormous quantities of wealth, obviously), you would have made a big profit; the other guy correctly bet that you would not. It’s just not the case that the process of wealth creation is what leads to super-profitable companies.
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Labour does some pretty good commercials
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Saying billionaires should stop paying lower tax rates than their secretaries isn’t demonizing wealth.
She’s advocating something that’s still like 1/4 of the way to US tax rates in the 50s and 60s - or current Europe.
Think of the two sides to the argument here:
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The richest country in the world with the most productive markets in the world should spread the wealth instead of it concentrating into a few hands.
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Nah my pathological need for as many $billions as I can buy off the govt. into letting me keep in the form of tax breaks is more important than that.
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Advocating sensible tax rates on a capitalist system is still being a capitalist. Was the US not capitalist in the 60s when we had higher taxes and stronger unions?
Zero taxes isn’t capitalism it’s anarcho-capitalism. Some taxes is capitalism.
Stop buying into the hyperbolic characterizations coming from the right-wing.
I just mean there’s a contradiction between ‘capitalist to my bones’ and her anti-billionaire rhetoric. Billionaires (or whatever point of obscene excess relative to the average) are a natural feature of capitalist systems - and of any system that under-regulates inequality (feudalism had plenty of obscene inequality).
Please link to her glorifying capitalism.
Capitalism is better than communism.
Socialism is just capitalism with taxes used to pay for stuff I don’t like. It’s not a thing.
So what exactly do you want to hear from her? “I hate capitalism but it’s better than communism?” You think that’s a good campaign message?
I mean, there is a point up to which I will tolerate the au courant abuse of the word ‘socialism’, but no, socialism is very much not ‘just capitalism with taxes used to pay for stuff I don’t like’ etc. And if you want to insist that it is, you don’t get to talk about buying into right-wing hyperbole.
What is socialism to you and is there a current country that embodies it?
The gearing of social, economic and political factors toward the greatest good for the greatest number, and no.
Isn’t that utilitarianism?
Given how communism worked out in practice - you could argue that well-regulated capitalism gears things towards the greatest good for the greatest number of any system that’s been tried in the real world.
Utilitarianism is a moral philosophy, from which it is possible to derive a socialist worldview. So I mean, kind of.
Socialism is a political philosophy. Communism is an economic system. All Communists are socialists, not all socialists are communists.
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When Bernie Sanders says “I’m a socialist” - maybe that means some specific philosophy to him. But I guarantee you 99.99% of voters just hear what they want to hear. For supporters it means a lot more social programs, for detractors it means grey-walled communism.
Expecting Warren to stake her claim by naming herself an adherent to a term that has lost all meaning with the general populace is a lot to ask imo.
Especially when in practice both she and Bernie are basically calling for the same thing - better-regulated capitalism, with more social safety net and fairer tax rates.
What does declaring “I’m a socialist” or not really matter?
I’m not asking her to do that. I’m saying that the fact that she won’t do that, and doesn’t and never will want to do that, means that Cuban is right to say that there’s a contradiction between her anti-billionaire rhetoric and her self-avowed status as ‘capitalist to my bones’.
This is largely true. So it comes down to who comes across as more sincere. I find the person whose rhetoric doesn’t feature this glaring contradiction more credible than the person whose rhetoric does.
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It sounds to me like you just want her to declare herself part of your tribe.