Our new Indie Games subforum is now open for business in G&T. Go and check it out, you might land a code for a free game. If you're developing an indie game and want to post about it,
follow these directions. If you don't, he'll break your legs! Hahaha! Seriously though.
Our rules have been updated and given
their own forum. Go and look at them! They are nice, and there may be new ones that you didn't know about! Hooray for rules! Hooray for The System! Hooray for Conforming!
OWS - Finger-Wiggling Their Way To a Better Tomorrow
Posts
The exempt purposes set forth in section 501(c)(3) are charitable, religious, educational, scientific, literary, testing for public safety, fostering national or international amateur sports competition, and preventing cruelty to children or animals. The term charitable is used in its generally accepted legal sense and includes relief of the poor, the distressed, or the underprivileged; advancement of religion; advancement of education or science; erecting or maintaining public buildings, monuments, or works; lessening the burdens of government; lessening neighborhood tensions; eliminating prejudice and discrimination; defending human and civil rights secured by law; and combating community deterioration and juvenile delinquency.
Handing money out to "movement building" and "infrastructure" for an organization engaged in political activity is a stretch at best. If they came to me asking for help setting up and running a 501(c)(3), we would have a very long talk and I'm not sure they would still want to set one up when we were done.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
Are they going to Philly to have a constitutional convention? That would be interesting at least, and maybe it would solve this whole radical democracy issue that is weighing them down.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
Sort of. More like a writing of the Declaration of Independence: http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-occupy-convention-20120223,0,1255598.story
Edit: It looks like this idea doesn't have the stamp of approval by the General Assembly:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2012/02/24/147349639/occupy-wall-street-doesnt-endorse-philly-conference
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
What they want is a 501(c)(7) social club. Still non-profit but not tax deductible. Alas, Google checkout would't let them have a "donate" button! I know this from experience.
And I would prefer it if you would use the more accurate term "inheritors" instead of the incredibly misleading and propagandist "achievers" term. And since you support equality of opportunity, I'm going to assume you support a 100% no-exclusion Estate Tax, right?
Since I'm wary of getting straw-manned into something SFKM said, I will just restate my position here:
I think saying something like "income inequality is bad" is a rather meaningless statement since it tends to support the idea that "income equality is good" and the only definition of income equality I can come up with is, you know, everyone earning the same amount. If you add a bit of nuance and say "some income inequality is good, but we have way too much in the US and it's getting worse" this is something I agree with but just talking about income inequality seems to imply it's the actual problem. If too much income inequality is all you care about you can fix it by enacting incredibly progressive income taxes but I doubt you'd see much improvement in the long term. In a way, it's like a Doctor prescribing you some aspirin for a headache when it turns out you have a brain tumor.
To tie this all back to OWS, my personal belief is that the corrupting influence of money on politics has been the major driver in income inequality over the last 20-30 years. Maybe if they had focused all their efforts on campaign finance reform, lobbying reform and insider trading on Congressional knowledge we would have gotten somewhere. Maybe that's asking too much, I don't know.
That's far to close to social darwinism. It's much easier for the well off to strive in do or die situations since they have the resources to survive if they fail. The poor and middle class will suffer under those circumstances. That's why it's good for the labor class to have good salaries & benefits from a starting point. Having lower salaries is also a method for their bosses to control them, because they'll be more worried about getting money in negotiations. It forces them to work longer hours, as well.
I mean yes, sometimes having a lot of money takes a lot of work. But sometimes having very little money takes equal work, or more! Often more.
http://troublethinking.wordpress.com (Updated Wed) http://twitter.com/#!/Durandal4532
Which by relation means that it takes the most work to spend a lot of money really really fast, and only on certain items, so that the amount you originally spent can mythically breed into an inheritance ten times it's starting worth!
...wait, what now?
Seriously, the fact that the Catholic Church is the largest anti-gay and anti-choice lobbying group in the world, and yet Planned Parenthood's lobbying budget isn't tax deductible is such ridiculous fucking bullshit. The government is subsidizing the Pope's point of view, but not women's point of view.
I will grant that "achievers" may be too value laden, but inheritors is just as prejudiced or a term. I am going to go with "winners" since people can win by working hard and playing by the rules, by cheating, or by sheer luck.
Equality of opportunity does not have to mean strict equality. As long as everyone starts from a position where success is reasonably possible, I am ok with some people starting with more. It is not possible to achieve perfect equality of opportunity unless you had the ability to judge and value everones' skill set, ambition, and other personal characteristics. I think that a more realistic goal is universally good schools, good health care, etc.
That said, I am in support of a higher estate tax, as long as we don't tax transfers to spouses or minor children.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
I'm not sure if I misunderstood what you were trying to say, but this sounds like a giant loophole. I'm going to guess that most wills transfer assets to the person's spouse.
No, I am not really communist. Yes, it is weird that I use this name.
You don't think the rich work long hours?
Someone needs to win, and as a society, we can choose the rules, but I don't think we are really capable of creating a world where everyone is a winner, without choosing to artificially cap how far you can go. We can (and maybe should) make sure that the game is more competitive, so that the winners don't lap everyone else 10 times, but arguing against inequality as a concept seems like a way of saying everyone just has to settle for mediocre.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
I know better, of course. I am fully aware that this planet is overrun by petty, self-centered and adversarial bullies that can't get hard unless they "know" that they are better than someone else, that their gains come at someone else's loss. But a man can dream, can't he?
Steam: DigitalArcanist | XBoxLive: DigitalArcanist | PSN: DigitalArcanist | Backloggery: Houn
This leaderless thing has got to go if we want it to be a serious political force for the long term
If you tax bequests to spouses, then you are literally supporting the idea that just because the breadwinner dies, the other should lose a large chunk (if not all) of what their spouse earned.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
People who are rich don't have that wealth as a result of work. To think that anyone has the amount of wealth it takes to become "rich" by being virtuous and hard working is to pretty much buy the 80's Republican sales pitch. This is not to say that the wealthy do not work, or that they're all assholes, but if you have ever relied on labor or employment to make money, you are not and never will be rich to the extent of the top 5-10% are rich. You may well be upper middle class, but confusing that with rich is a mistake.
I think the idea is if the husband dies the wife gets everything, if she dies and her kids are under 18 they win the lottery. If they are over 18 the government is going to take a big old chunk of that because fuck them they don't deserve it. Assuming I'm reading it right I get it.
http://steamcommunity.com/id/BaronofBank/
Blog: www.blakesmisko.com
Portfolio: www.cargocollective.com/bsdesigns
We don't have to tax them at 100%. I'm sure Thanatos will settle for 50%.
So are plenty of poor people.
You're not going to find a moral correlation here, it doesn't exist.
http://troublethinking.wordpress.com (Updated Wed) http://twitter.com/#!/Durandal4532
You think the top 5-10% don't make it to "rich" through labor? The top 10% of families by income started at $108k in 2011. I virtually guarantee that is wages (although it is also clearly not rich). To get into the top 1% you needed $386k in 2011. Also very doable on wages. Even people in the 1% (11mm) can definitely make it in through their compensation for labor (CEO's, executives, fund managers) although the forms of comp they receive tend to be subject to capital gains rates instead of ordinary income rates.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
If the president had any real power, he'd be able to live wherever the fuck he wanted.
So limit the estate tax to amounts over $100k and call it a day.
So a husband works and the wife stays home with the kids. The husband dies. Now the wife and kids get nothing but $100k (likely not even enough to cover their mortgage)? That seems incredibly harsh. . .
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
I think that any attempt to move away from the single economic unit view of a family is very dangerous. In this world, you should never become a house wife/husband, because if your working spouse dies, you will be left with very little, even though your work maintaining the house, watching the kids, etc. enabled the working spouse to work. I really can't see any reason that we should think that when the working spouse dies, the widow/er should get anything less that the full amount their spouse earned.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
I agree that being leaderless would not be good, but latching on to the DNC seems awful. OWS should remain independent from them so they do not simply become a tool for the DNC to make progressives more comfortable in voting for center-right Democrats.
If more progressives were active in the party, the DNC would cater to them. Maybe another organization then?
Another possibility is occupy becoming a full on voice of labor, but they need to forcibly purge the end the fed assholes that keep trying to steal the microphone. The unions already have established political power OWS could work with
And that is where equality if opportunity comes in. But even in a world where everyone gets a comparable education for free, and has their expenses paid while attending school so that around 21 everyone has a degree of their choice and now debt, and where jobs are awarded based on nothing but merit, there are still going to be pretty great disparities in wealth, due to a number of factors. Some people will choose to work harder, some will choose more lucrative fields, some will save/invest their money and others will spend it all, some will take risks that pay off and some will take risks that don't pay off. Inequality is a side effect of human diversity, and you can't get rid of it completely without making the whole population homogenous on whatever factor you want to equalize.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
So...what was your point? You seem to be arguing against changing the status quo because whatever ideal society we can envision will never exist. That's pretty much the same argument that could be used for any number of terrible things like slavery, women's rights, or labor laws.
Furthermore, you've argued that hard work pays off. Since it would be hard, but ultimately beneficial to strive towards a better overall society, why would we not work towards it?
That world sounds pretty awesome. Remind me why we don't do that again?
*edit* Less snarky, but the world you're describing in the bold there is the sort of thing that supporters or OWS want to see. No one (barring fringe lunatics) wants communistic homogenization; the idea is to level the playing field, not the players.
Steam: DigitalArcanist | XBoxLive: DigitalArcanist | PSN: DigitalArcanist | Backloggery: Houn
No, I'm not saying keep the status quo, I'm saying that income inequality in itself is not something we can change. The magnitude of the inequality may be something we can and should change, but income inequality will and should continue to exist.
Hard work pays off <> we should do things because they are hard. Also, better for who? As much as we like to say that ending slavery made the world better for everybody, it was pretty bad for slave owners. You need to define who you want to benefit, and why benefiting them justifies hurting the people that will lose as a result of your change.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
STEAM: Gasman1220 | My Backloggery
So then how far do you want to go? What plausible actions would you propose taking to reduce income inequality, who should the winners be, and why should we value giving them more over the status quo? These are earnest questions.
"There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing." -- Andrew Jackson
Worst example of relativism ever.