thrance

Social spending is redistributive, it reduces wealth inequalities. Shrink it and you make the actual issue worse. I guarantee you this 5% we recover wouldn't be used to balance the budget, but to grant another tax cut to the wealthy. And let's not even mention the consequences of cutting 1/20th of total social spending on human lives, this spending is not just a frivolous expense we can cut in when needed. We've been doing neoliberalism for 50 years, maybe it's time we cut our losses and find something better?

It's not actually about reducing spending vs increasing taxes, it's about regressive tax policies vs progressive tax policies. Inequalities are rising, because progressive forms of taxation (wealth tax...) are being removed in favor of regressive ones (such as this ridiculous internet tax), while the redistributive apparatus (social security, benefits...) shrinks year after year. The reason is simple: the rich basically own the government, evidenced by the fact that they are the only winners of the past decades.

We've been doing austerity and tax cuts for the rich for 50 years now, under neoliberalism. We have to stop and focus our attention on reducing the wealth inequality that are destroying our nations, before it's too late.

Hurray, a new form of regressive taxation.

Why start the article with an AI-generated skyline of Paris? You couldn't find a real picture? Fucking hell.

> As the publishers of a geographic reference tool, we believe that Google should not choose sides in international geopolitical disputes. For this reason, we've chosen to implement a uniform policy of Primary Local Usage.

Yeah, right, until a wannabe despot comes in and demands Google come lick its boots. In which case Google immediately complies with zero objection.

The adult in the room here is the moralizing "enlightened centrist" that puts bothsideism in every conversation about politics.

We've never had this many billionaires, and they've never been this rich. So following your logic, the country should be more prosperous than ever, right?

I used to buy this sort of arguments, but then saw him fork $45B to buy Twitter, on demand, so...

> his companies are paying people and other companies that pay people

Yes, his companies, not him. He's not doing much, except distracting part of his workforce to work on vanity projects such as flying cars or mile-long vaccuum tubes, or spending some of his vast wealth to buy politicians that will further the cause of wealth inequality. Get rid of him, and the system works much better for everyone. Him and others like him.

Feels relevant:

> The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labour. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent. Even when weapons of war are not actually destroyed, their manufacture is still a convenient way of expending labour power without producing anything that can be consumed. A Floating Fortress, for example, has locked up in it the labour that would build several hundred cargo-ships. Ultimately it is scrapped as obsolete, never having brought any material benefit to anybody, and with further enormous labours another Floating Fortress is built.

From George Orwell's 1984.

FDR served four terms and basically saved the USA from the jaws of ruin, fascism and the oligarchy. It's not necessarily a bad thing.

True, I think "poor, indoctrinated and hopeless" was a poor choice of words on my part. "Apathetic" fits better. The Russian population is so used to getting fucked over by their government, they don't expect anything better, and don't believe things can change for the better. This is the most dangerous feature of our age of Neoliberalism, creating apathy and hopelessness in the face of rampant corruption and austerity.

To be more precise, capital only seeks to grow its relative power over labor. Making everything shittier is part of it. If you want a clear image of what it is that these people want, look at Russia: a shithole where a few oligarchs hold absolute power, are bound to no laws and lord over a poor, indoctrinated and hopeless populace. Sure, these oligarchs would be richer if Russia was more prosperous, but they don't care about that.

The owners of these companies are very much conservative though, not out of any ideology mind you, but because they correctly identify that this is the party that best suits their class interests of fucking over everyone and everything else in order to get richer.