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EyeballKid said:
I would guess that most folks with wealth beyond 100 mil take advantage of a number of shady tax shelters and exert an oversized influence on government policy which allows them to maintain their wealth.

It’s not necessarily evidence of a crime.

It is, however, evidence of the corruption of our politics and tax policy.
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Dedication to Laissez-Faire capitalism and Constitutional Democratic Republicanism are a fitful pairing and when the former rules, as it will seek to do, the latter suffers often to the point of becoming nigh unrecognizable and at best a façade.
 
hedge said:
Do you think that fairness dictates that these people should be executed in the street? Also still want to know what it is about a tiny fraction of them (1%) that allows them to remain alive and retain their wealth and freedom to do with it as they choose…
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Being overall decent people. I have met and known a lot of very wealthy people. The lion's share i would not consider kind and/or decent. I am absolutely radically focused on the character of people. To me, there is no greater crime than the unending search for "more" with no focus on helping others. But this is also hijacking this thread. I regret that my comment launched such. If you'd like to have a separate discussion about how the ultra wealthy are a cancer on society as an overall group, you can start the thread.
 
Jetson said:
Hmmm...but according to someone from DHS talking in the media in an article linked earlier in this thread, assaults on ICE officers are up 1300%!! Maybe this update will bring the percentage down to 1299% though. They're just doing their job after all.
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"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics". Mark Twain (attributing to Benjamin Disraeli)
 
donbosco said:
Dedication to Laissez-Faire capitalism and Constitutional Democratic Republicanism are a fitful pairing and when the former rules, as it will seek to do, the latter suffers often to the point of becoming nigh unrecognizable and at best a façade.
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This is a fair point, but it's one thing to offer and ponder a criticism of systems of economic and political structure and another to say that it's fair to execute those who have succeeded in operating in the former to acquire more wealth than most other people have managed to achieve, most of whom dream about precisely such an achievement for themselves...
 
wmheel1287 said:
Being overall decent people. I have met and known a lot of very wealthy people. The lion's share i would not consider kind and/or decent.
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So you think that your personal experience of having met and known "a lot" of very wealthy people and having found them, in your estimation, to not be kind and/or decent, is justification to declare it "fair" that all wealthy people (or, well, 99% of them) be executed in the streets? Oh my. Somewhere Robespierre is blushing...

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hedge said:
So you think that your personal experience of having met and known "a lot" of very wealthy people and having found them, in your estimation, to not be kind and/or decent, is justification to declare it "fair" that all wealthy people (or, well, 99% of them) be executed in the streets? Oh my. Somewhere Robespierre is blushing...

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I think he made an overstatement that he has pulled back. You're really banging on a counterfactual hypothetical that I'm quite sure was not meant literally.
 
I'm not seeing the pullback you mention, super. Quite the contrary, actually. And OK, take the literal executing of these people in the streets off the table. I still think it's more than fair to interpret his assessment of great wealth writ large as somehow "unfair" is just... wrong. Is that gentle enough?
 
hedge said:
This is a fair point, but it's one thing to offer and ponder a criticism of systems of economic and political structure and another to say that it's fair to execute those who have succeeded in operating in the former to acquire more wealth than most other people have managed to achieve, most of whom dream about precisely such an achievement for themselves...
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You think such dreams are the fervent hopes of most? Or are they more along the lines of daydreams?
 
hedge said:
I'm not seeing the pullback you mention, super. Quite the contrary, actually. And OK, take the literal executing of these people in the streets off the table. I still think it's more than fair to interpret his assessment of great wealth writ large as somehow "unfair" is just... wrong. Is that gentle enough?
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He wrote this in a recent post: If you'd like to have a separate discussion about how the ultra wealthy are a cancer on society as an overall group, you can start the thread.

It's really hard to argue with this sentiment these days. Not all ultra-wealthy perhaps, but on average the billionaire class is hurting America.

Billionaire wealth is absolutely unfair and it's almost impossible to construct a coherent definition of fair that would lead to a different conclusion in this context. Capitalism isn't good because it leads to fair outcomes -- it never does. Rather, it's so much more efficient than planned economies that the poor in America have more amenities than the rich in, say, North Korea.
 
donbosco said:
You think such dreams are the fervent hopes of most? Or are they more along the lines of daydreams?
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Good question. Fervent for some, certainly along the lines of daydreams (at least) for almost all. Look at how much money all sorts of various lotteries rake in constantly...
 
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