And the latest version is Unity based. Also, I'd say the only thing that prevents Enterbrain to do a similar move, is simply that they don't even have nearly the same significance & reach as Unity. RPG Maker always was a niche product, even if it a popular one at that. But you don't really see big commercial game releases that are based on it like you do with Unity.
We'll have to see how this Unity thing plays out, but if this isn't going to be the engine's downfall, then it will become a new norm for others to follow.
Sometimes for gits and shiggles, I’ll check the one star reviews for things I know are going to trip inexperienced people up.
Like… It’s basically the “substituted flour with powdered eggplant and milk with tobacco sauce, 1/10 tasted horrible but I followed the recipe exactly” meme
Especially anything with DIY properties. “doesn’t work, connected to the battery and it immediately blew up” when it’s clear from the picture they hooked a 48v battery into a 12v speed controller. Or cut some wires they weren’t supposed to. Or reversed polarity of an important component. Or…
And rather than admit they fucked it up, they give bad reviews.
I particularly like when the listing is clearly for something that requires assembly, and bad reviews complain it came “in pieces”. READ, YOU DENSE MOTHERFUCKERS
And if you see a bunch of bad grammar, and inconsistent specs in a listing… Maybe don’t put too much faith in the $5 item that would cost $100 if you bought it from a licensed and certified source with quality assurance…
Why do they use [FedEx/UPS/USPS]?! [FedEx/UPS/USPS] can never find my house! [FedEx/UPS/USPS] is the WORST shipping service of all of them! Product is amazing though.
Don’t forget that it’s also effectively a pay cut due to the added expenses and time lost in commuting. They should ask if the company is going to at least pay for the maintenance of the car if they aren’t going to pay for the time spent commuting.
We are required to show up one day a week, but my employer usually buy breakfast and/or lunch. It’s a decent meal, not a shitty half slice of pizza.
None of us dress up. Not the bosses, the lawyer, no one. We sit in the conference room looking like it’s finals weeks. No one cares, and we get more done.
I do something similar, I’m on a dev team of 2 and a while back we started going in once a month for a “planning day” where we spend a couple hours in person planning out our month and spend the rest of the day talking to the teams who actually use our software to get feedback and ideas. At first the owner would take me and the other dev out for lunch but we’ve turned it into a whole office thing. So usually the whole offices shuts down for about 2 hours for a nice free lunch when we come in. One day a bunch of us went out for mini golf after lunch on the bosses dime. Another month a couple of us played old Xbox games and smoked cigs in the basement while we “brainstormed”.
Paying for commute time for regular workers is not going to happen, for many many decades you getting to work is your own issue…thus why we find a place near highway access or near transit. asking a company to pay travel means they will just hire somebody that lives close by
The other option is a lefty Jan 6. You forget these are our alternative avenues rather than violence. But violence seems like the only bell that makes any noise these days sense the rest is drowned out by the massive amounts of free speech pouring into politicians’ pockets.
Sorry my intention was to convey my agreement with you but also point out a funny attribute of this avenue which could be interpreted to align with the overarching “tax the rich” theme of the OP
Yeah. Every bonus that I’ve ever seen has been raced at something like 40%. We really need to both make capital gains equally taxed to earned income and have a wealth tax.
(TL;DR: a low capital gains rate has historically raised more in tax revenue, so if the goal is more taxes being paid, your suggestion is counter-productive)
The justification for a lower tax rate on capital gains relative to ordinary income is threefold: it is not indexed for inflation, it is a double tax, and it encourages present consumption over future consumption.
First, the tax is not adjusted for inflation, so any appreciation of assets is taxed at the nominal instead of the real value. This means investors must pay tax not only on the real return but also on the inflation created by the Federal Reserve.
Second, the capital gains tax is merely part of a long line of federal taxation of the same dollar of income. Wages are first taxed by payroll and personal income taxes, then again by the corporate income tax if one chooses to invest in corporate equities, and then again when those investments pay off in the form of dividends and capital gains. This puts corporations at a disadvantage relative to pass through business entities, whose owners pay personal income tax on distributed profits, instead of taxes on corporate income, capital gains, and dividends. One way corporations mitigate this excessive taxation is through debt rather than equity financing, since interest is deductible. This creates perverse incentives to over leverage, contributing to the boom and bust cycle.
Finally, a capital gains tax, like nearly all of the federal tax code, is a tax on future consumption. Future personal consumption, in the form of savings, is taxed, while present consumption is not. By favoring present over future consumption, savings are discouraged, which decreases future available capital and lowers long term growth.
Not only has a low capital gains tax rate worked to encourage savings and increase economic growth, a low capital gains rate has historically raised more in tax revenue.
The goal in my mind is not to necessarily increase total revenue but to erode the capacity to hoard wealth. The lower rates are gamed to increase wealth disparity, giving a distinct advantage to those who are already wealthy, over those who are not.
The wealthiest’s wealth is all invested in the economy, literally the opposite of “hoarding”.
“The lower rates are gamed to increase wealth disparity” is false–they are that way to encourage entrepreneurship and the like, the things that keep the economy strong. The fact that those who create the things that strengthen the economy become wealthy faster than those who don’t is a feature, not a bug. A rising tide lifts all ships. And make no mistake, one’s assets appreciating in value takes nothing away from those who haven’t invested–the latter group’s level of wealth is not affected by the former’s. In other words, the wage my job pays me does not change based on how wealthy other people’s assets are, from the billionaires, down to even a neighbor whose house has appreciated in value.
Wealth disparity is not inherently a bad thing–a century ago, the ‘gap’ was much smaller, as was the number of billionaires, but the average person’s wealth was also MUCH lower.
The wealthiest’s wealth is all invested in the economy, literally the opposite of “hoarding”.
The economy is more than the NYSE and bought politicians.
“The lower rates are gamed to increase wealth disparity” is false–they are that way to encourage entrepreneurship and the like, the things that keep the economy strong.
Don’t know what to tell you there. The money doesn’t buying legislation to keep workers in places of economic instability doesn’t really encourage entrepreneurship or reduce its inherent risks. Entrepreneurship is also pretty well dominated by the wealthy who can afford the Russia, largely due to inherited wealth.
The fact that those who create the things that strengthen the economy become wealthy faster than those who don’t is a feature, not a bug. A rising tide lifts all ships. And make no mistake, one’s assets appreciating in value takes nothing away from those who haven’t invested–the latter group’s level of wealth is not affected by the former’s. In other words, the wage my job pays me does not change based on how wealthy other people’s assets are, from the billionaires, down to even a neighbor whose house has appreciated in value.
Wealth disparity is not inherently a bad thing–a century ago, the ‘gap’ was much smaller, as was the number of billionaires, but the average person’s wealth was also MUCH lower.
Wealth disparity is the root of most crime and human suffering. Also, the years leading into the Great Depression may not be a good reference point on average wealth.
You know what, I didn’t think that we’re going to see eye to eye on these matters, regardless of how much back and forth we have. I hope you have a pleasant day and eventually see an increase in empathy that shifts your worldview.
Bonuses don’t get taxed any differently. What happens if your employers payroll software sees additional income above your wages and without any tax-exempt lines (like health insurance) subtracting from taxable income. It ends up calculating a higher tax withholding rate. Or it doesn’t and just calculates the maximum marginal rate by default because it’s a stupid program.
Come tax time a dollar of income is a dollar of income. Your tax burden is calculated in total income and bonuses are treated no differently than wages.
Your tax return is just leveling out with the government. You’re paying the same amount of tax over the whole course of the year, and when you file the taxes, any refund or payment is a surplus or deficit of what you paid versus what you owed.
It gets tricky when you get paid once and then never get paid again, but the original thing you were paid with (i.e. company stocks) goes up in value over time, effectively replacing wages. Do we count that value increase as well? What if you get paid in cash, you buy something with that cash (could be the same company stocks), and that thing goes up in value? Or you buy another asset that your company has a lot of influence over?
The company exists without the stock market. People will still own portions of that company. The value will just be harder for the general public to determine and can be more easily obfuscated for tax purposes.
People will still own portions of that company. The value will just be harder for the general public to determine and can be more easily obfuscated for tax purposes.
Companies shouldn’t have values placed on them. They shouldn’t be bought or sold. They should all be employee owned.
They are counted as income. When company grants stock, it appears in W2, for example.
The rub is when their extrapolated value changes, and this would be fine if they sold, as there is a tax system for handling that too, but there are gaps with borrowing where they can game the system by borrowing against the value instead of selling. By needlessly living in debt, they can manage their tax burden in ways unavailable to mere mortals.
Well, sure. Just have to accurately describe what to stop. Usually calls to action don’t understand the actual scheme in play, so folks ask for things that either don’t make sense or already exist. Within that context hard to fight when you don’t even know what to fight
I agree that the specifics are important, but it is honestly just tiring trying to keep track of the countless loopholes that the rich use. The end result is that I know there is horseshit going on, but I just don’t have the time to always give a thoroughly researched answer every time.
The tricky part is that has implications for business control. Other people speculate the market cap into 50m and then they take over control of your company, because you are forced to sell off your stake. So an arbitrary coalition of 3 rich dudes can just take over your company on a whim, if it is vaguely important enough. A coalition of rich people is not likely going to treat the customers or employees better.
I think that’s a solvable problem. Theoretical value of a private company’s shares would need to be more flexible because the real worth won’t be known until selling your stake, or the company going public where there is a concrete value.
The loophole is that they aren’t paid that amount in maximum wage anyway. The actual wage is some degree of modest. They just get paid in bonuses and stock options, which don’t count for one reason or another.
There are many options for a company that hits performance metrics. The big ones would be re-inveermemt back into the company after the employee and shareholder compensation reaches the limit. A company with several departments that see a growth in their budgets will improve the value of the company and at the same time will see improvements to quality of life for the employees.
More ideas for excise wealth:
spinning off functions from the parent company to become other companies a flat, one time bonus for all employees expansion of employee benefits social program investments, like parks, schools, recreation centers, local sports teams, libraries, etc. community improvement projects (which are constantly underfunded)
If the extra wealth was actually allowed to trickle throughout the people, it would be an explosion of improvements to community health and well being. Businesses would directly help the people who patronize it, leading to more recognition (ie free advertising) for the companies who contribute the most.
There are many, many options for how to weigh the value the of a company, the performance of its books, and find a way to keep the business thriving while not sucking out the money of its customers.
I don’t know what that means- but how do these options not still increase the wealth of the company and therefore increase the wealth of the owners of the company
Re-investment. I figured a typo like that would be safe to assume but oh well.
Measuring the value of a company would be valuations just like now with shares equaling the value of the company. The owner would be divested from the company as it increased in value to separate the two. The value of the company would then be independent of the owner’s share in it.
Measuring the value of a company would be valuations just like now with shares equaling the value of the company. The owner would be divested from the company as it increased in value to separate the two. The value of the company would then be independent of the owner’s share in it.
How? Most people this rich have next to nothing in their bank accounts. The ridiculous numbers you see are not bank account balances or sports cars and yachts. Its primarily shares of the companies they manage. E.g. if you tax them conventionally, you force them to close the factories and everyone becomes poorer. If you just confiscate the company (shares), now the government owns companies, and we saw how that goes plenty of times: USSR, North Korea, Cuba, … Or you give the shares to people, but the company would still need to be managed by someone who no longer has a proportional incentive to make it succeed, causing the same result as if it was government run.
…or you have the workers communally run the factory and elect the person to run it and if they don’t do a good job, they lose the position. Which seems like a pretty good incentive to succeed. In fact, “do this right or you’re fired” rarely seems to apply to the person at the top.
Lets pretend they would not become corrupt. What about unpopular decisions, such as layoffs? As much as people hate them, they are sometimes necessary to keep peoples work productive.
Again, if they do a bad job, they can be taken out of office by the other workers. If they handle layoffs the right way, they won’t be taken out of office.
First off, if you think people will vote for unpopular things because they are handled correctly and the right thing to do, you are not paying attention to any elections.
Second of all, lets say I am elected to run this company. I have two options:
Operate the company to the best of my abilities and in the best case scenario, I will get a bit above average wage. More likely something out of my control will happen that I will be balmed for by the next guy who wants to run the company.
I give way overpriced contracts to people who will give something of value to me. Of course vaguely enough that you can’t prove it in court. Then I just lose my job in a year or two, when people figure it out. Of course by then, I gained more in that year than I would gain in my entire life working honestly.
What do you think the kind of people thick skinned enough to win a company election would do?
And if your solution is to lower the burden of proof in court, who would take normal salaried job with high chance of being falsely imprisoned? Not the honest ones…
Ignore that last part, just me writing ahead too much. I was trying to say this kind of corruption is incredibly hard to prove, so courts are not helpful.
Well, I live in a formerly socialist country so we remember what incredibly corrupt looked like. Most modern CEOs look outright virtuous in comparison.
Really? Your ‘formerly socialist country’ had all factories controlled by the workers and executives chosen through democratic election? And they were less corrupt than Elon Musk?
On paper yes. We all know what the reality was. Which would repeat immediately unless you can align the decision makers interests with interests of the people.
So what is the proper implementation? How do you make this “worker owned” be more than on paper platitude?
Capitalism does this by paying obscene amounts of money to the decision makers for making “good” decisions. It sucks. It sucks a lot less than anything else ever implemented.
Laws made by whom? Enforced by whom? The issue is always the humans in the system. You think the people fighting in the communist revolutions were fighting to implement something badly? It ended badly because they did not have any more of plan than you do. They were just wishing laws on paper would bind people. That people in power would protect the masses. But paper is just paper and those in power are always selfish. They have to be, to remain in power. Not understanding this is why they failed.
Capitalism does its best to try an make sure that greedy actions also result in benefits for society. It doesn’t always work. Where it doesn’t, we need to fight to regulate it. Minimal wages, workers rights, carbon tax, … Align the interest of the rich with the interests of society as much as possible. And in exchange for helping society, they get to be filthy rich. It is not perfect. It is not fair. But it works. You want to change things for the better, work on improving our regulated capitalism, instead of repeating extremist mistakes of the past. Because putting people in position of power and hoping they will do the right thing instead of the selfish thing will always fail. Capitalism is about exploiting selfishness for the greater good.
Greedy actions (unless they are dumb) always benefit the people making them, you can complain to god if you want but that is realistically unchangeable. I am talking about benefiting society in addition to the person making them. That is what “also” means. Yes, actions can benefit more than one person, what a concept.
Not really. However I hate Musk (trust me I do), Tesla still makes cars, SpaceX still launches satellites, and Starlink still provides internet. These things benefit society. However Bezos treats his employees, Amazon sells and delivers goods, runs twitch, makes TV shows, … These are benefits to society that Musk and Bezos helped with. Does it make it ok to mistreat workers? Absolutely not. Does it make it ok to evade/“optimize” taxes? Absolutely not. Capitalism NEEDS TO BE REGULATED. We have seen unregulated capitalism fail just as hard as pure communism. But that does not mean that they deserve nothing. That they can’t have villas and sports cars for helping create these companies that benefit others.
Why are Musk or Bezos needed for any of those things? How did they help in specific? Did they design the cars or the rockets? Did they create the products on Amazon or the algorithms?
If they are not needed, then go do it. Surely you can make a cheaper and better versions of Amazon and Tesla without paying billions to people like Musk and Bezos… Or maybe you can make something entirely new.
Again, because it doesn’t seem to be clear to you yet, just because I personally cannot start a rival to Amazon or Tesla does not mean that they are necessary.
It literally does. If I can do something and in the same environment, you can’t, something about me is necessary. Sure, maybe I am not the only one in the world who can do it, but I obviously contribute.
The “necessary” thing of theirs is their money. If you took them out of the equation and kept the money and not worry about making more profits than last year every year, that necessity wouldn’t be there.
Jeff Bezos did not invent eCommers. Elon Musk did not invent the rocket or the electric car. They are not scientists, they are investors.
So yeah, I don’t have money to invest because, unlike Bezos, I didn’t work on Wall Street for years before funding an e-commerce site and unlike Elon Musk, I didn’t start a company with money from my father who owned an emerald mine.
Money like that is only necessary in a flawed capitalist system. And the result is the exploitation of workers for low pay, shoddy products and, in the case of Tesla, shocking racism and sexual harassment.
Jobs didn’t have money, neither did the founders of Google. And plenty of people were ritcher than Bezos and Musk yet they did not create Amazon or SpaceX.
Well, I don’t have the time nor do you pay me to teach you in detail how corporations works, so you can take the obvious examples of why money is not enough or remain ignorant.
Again trying to change the subject about corporations and not specific people who had no actual function in creating or producing what the company that made them super rich does.
Yes, because needing to know how corporations work to know what Bezos did to make it work is such a leap of logic.
But you obviously are not willing to be convinced by reason, just to argue your point ad infinitum. After all, it was not me who brought up Musk and Bezos specifically anyway. It was not me changing the subject. I hope at least some other readers learnt something.
I agree a wealth tax is difficult to implement, but that alone is not a reason to dismiss the idea. Also, for shares, you can always sell shares to pay the taxes that are due. The point of wealth tax is to wealth, not income. Much like a property tax. I don’t understand why they would be forced to limit their own income potential (by closing factories or decreasing production) in order to pay taxes on wealth they own.
Sell them to whom? You are taxing everyone rich enough to buy them.
They would close factories to sell them for parts and blow the cash on whatever before paying taxes: casinos, yachts, moving to a country without such taxes, …
You make it sound like factories don’t actually net them profit LMAO. Even after paying taxes they’re still making money. If they weren’t, it would be a terrible business. Also what do you mean sell them to whom? Other billionaires that still exist even with a wealth tax, non billionaire investors, international investors. If they can’t find someone to sell their shares to, then clearly their shares are overvalued and that’ll take care of some of the problem in itself.
Also shutting down factories won’t affect their wealth, which is actually what’s being taxed. And it won’t matter weather they sell $1 billion of whatever to buy $1 billion of something else. You’re taxing their wealth, not their business or cash in hand. If they’re holding on to $1 billion in one form or another, then they’re holding on to $1 billion that can be taxed.
Once again, billionaires don’t have large sums of money in their banks. It is all invested. So if all of them in the country have no money and need to sell to pay these massive taxes, who are they selling to?
And sorry to say this, but if you genuinely think selling a significant portion of a countries industry/businesses to foreign investors could be good for the people of the country, than I am wasting my time here.
Better than a wealth tax is a land value tax. Key properties are that it doesn’t cause capital flight (you can’t move land), it’s almost impossible to evade (you can’t hide land), it’s economically efficient (it literally doesn’t even harm the economy in the slightest to implement it), it can’t be passed on to tenants (both in economic theory and in observed practice), and it’s progressive.
Plus, it incentives denser, transit-oriented city development and disincentivizes wastage of prime real estate (which contributes to the housing crisis). All in all, a terrific policy that people aren’t talking nearly enough about imo.
At least in the US, most people already pay local and state property taxes that are higher in high population density areas. The problem with this tax is that it still disproportionately affects middle class home owners instead of only affecting the billionaire class. Also, land is just 1 aspect of wealth. Most of the wealthy in the US don’t keep any significant part of their wealth in land.
Most of the wealthy in the US don’t keep any significant part of their wealth in land.
This is really key. If it was 100 years ago, this would make more sense, but the vast majority of measured wealth created in the world today is in intangible assets, like stock prices.
In the only countries that still have a ‘wealth tax’, the thresholds are so broad that they are primarily a burden of the middle and lower classes, making it effectively no different than a more conventional/mundane tax, versus what everyone talking about a “wealth tax” in these kinds of discussions invariably expects; namely, a tax that only/primarily targets the wealthiest.
Before the income tax was implemented, there were promises it’d only be aimed at the rich, too.
Youre right about income tax and to some degree income tax does primarily effect the wealthy except the brackets haven’t been updated to reflect inflation and the new ultra wealthy class appropriately. The other thing is, many of the wealthy don’t have incomes in the traditional sense, and it makes no sense to differentiate capital gains from regular income. The argument that you don’t want retirement investment income taxed as regular income tax is a little moot since that’s why we have tax advantaged retirement accounts. If those accounts aren’t enough for all retirement investments, maybe those limits need to be increased or the way the tax advantage works for them needs to be changed.
Past failed attempts are also a good point, but to me they sound more like administrative failures rather than a failure of that type of policy. In the US we already have some wealth taxes on the value of homes and cars. Some of these failed European policies seemed to define wealth poorly and as a result either weren’t fully taxing wealth or spending more resources on administration than collections. But banks already do a great job of assessing an individual’s wealth. This is how the ultra rich are able to get huge lines of credit to play with rather than having to use their own capital directly. I don’t see how the government can’t use similar systems to calculate an individual’s total wealth. And the argument about the wealthy fleaing the country are also a little moot in the US. The wealthy in the US make money off of American tax dollars. Amazon/Bezos is rich because the US government started using AWS. Tesla is successful because the US uses their influence in South America to cost effectively obtain raw materials for batteries (not to mention those tax credits on EVs). There are all the military industrial companies, and the insurance companies. If the government had the backbone to say Americans who got wealthy using the American market have to pay taxes in America or they lose their right to sell to the American market (government or to the public), no one is going anywhere.
Or you give the shares to people, but the company would still need to be managed by someone who no longer has a proportional incentive to make it succeed, causing the same result as if it was government run.
Would it? Give the shares to the workers and they have a huge incentive to run a company well. Right now a CEO’s only priority is to maximise shareholders return. A workers led company would maximise both shareholder return AND have an incentive and pride in doing a job properly instead of the low morale and poorly built crap we have today.
History has shown anytime control is in the hands of the few, it’s run into the ground in order to maximise the wealth for the few so giving control to the masses of workers in companies would lead to more compromises and might sound bad at first but would likely work better the more people required to make drastic changes.
And as said many times, no billionaire has ever ‘earned’ that. They’ve all gained it through exploitation and wage theft either directly or indirectly!
So how do the workers run the company? A vote on every little decision? If not, you have to still have a CEO, for whom it is now far more profitable to make decisions that profit them rather than the company. And even if you vote on every decision, could most workers really understand what they are voting for.
Also, what about layoffs? While everyone loves to hate layoffs, they are part of keeping peoples work productive. Are the workers going to vote/approve them?
No, I am saying that often, company may need to downsize to remain productive. For example, lets say we have a company that makes headphone jacks. For obvious reasons, they are no longer able to sell as many as they used to, but maybe half.
The company now needs to layoff half the workers. Is the elected CEO going to promptly do it? Or will he delay it and causing both financial damage to the company and productivity damage to the economy?
And also, do the fired employees still get to vote? Is just firing malcontents the tyrant CEOs weapon?
And even if you vote on every decision, could most workers really understand what they are voting for.
Yeah because 32hrs would become 40 and we would discard another 8. 6hrsx4. When that happens we are no longer deprived of time edilucate and discuss the matter with the relevant folks.
And even if you vote on every decision, could most workers really understand what they are voting for.
Yes. Because of the above.
Also, what about layoffs? While everyone loves to hate layoffs, they are part of keeping peoples work productive
No. They aren’t. They actually doing the exact opposite. Your statement to contrary of the obvious is a sucker delusion. Stop consuming sugar to begin with and finish by stopping to listen to money.
Are the workers going to vote/approve them?
Yup. Your delusion is thinking that mass is any kind of importance. Its not when it is compared to life because shit might come from the magick of people but there will never be life as a part of them unless they were to begin with and in that case, you were never the creator. Workers MUST have the right to make decision where they work or the entire planet will die. No fucking exceptions with any financial delusions because ALL of it is doing and being exactly that.
then that’s for the workers to decide on. If 51% of the workforce agrees, thats the decision! If that doesn’t ‘fit’ with the workers, make it 60% or 75%, or whatever number the majority agree on!
It really isn’t that difficult. There are plenty of voting systems, the issue comes down to people and a change of thinking how companies are run.
You can make any argument why it wouldn’t work when you don’t want something to work but given the current system is working soooo well… new ideas are better than no ideas! 😎
You say that ironically, but average people in developed nations have arguably better lifestyle and more resources than kings used to. And living standard in developing nations have been steadily improving. The system is incredibly flawed because the humans it is made of are incredibly flawed. Considering how flawed it is, it is working astonishingly well.
Thankfully, workers are deciding every day they would rather work in the current system, then stop working based on some hopeless dreams of flying castles.
then that’s for the workers to decide on. If 51% of the workforce agrees, thats the decision!
But the vast majority of workers don’t have the slightest idea how to run a business effectively. A very large proportion of them mismanage their own finances, let alone a larger responsibility like that.
Why should we have a stock market in the first place? Seems like all it does is act as a means for the rich to shuffle their wealth around, funnel it to the top and claim they have next to no liquidity.
First of all, it matters if the stock market is fulfilling its original intention. Which it obviously is. Second of all, some of the biggest traders on the stock market are pension funds of common workers, appreciating their retirement money. Fuck over how exactly?
And third, let’s say none of what I wrote is true. Why are we somehow better of not having a stock market at all instead of fixing it to fulfill its purpose? Or making a new one if it is easier? Do you regularly throw away things without getting a replacement when they stop working? Never replaced your car and phone after they got old and broke?
Second of all, some of the biggest traders on the stock market are pension funds of common workers, appreciating their retirement money.
“The rich now own a record share of stocks,” Axios reported on January 10, noting that the top 10 percent hold about 93 percent of U.S. households stock market wealth.
You’re being misleading, or have been misleading about the allocation of wealth within the stock market.
Retirement should be a public service, not a form of gambling within a system set up for the rich.
Why are we somehow better of not having a stock market at all instead of fixing it to fulfill its purpose?
Because it would be one less way for the rich to obfuscate their wealth growth, because the original purpose of distributing ownership through shares is an inherently flawed idea.
Do you regularly throw away things without getting a replacement when they stop working?
“Why would we get rid of the orphan killing machine!?!?!? We would have to replace it with a new one.”
Ok, lets do some math. The GDP of the US is $28 trillion. The population of 15 years and above is about 273.85 million. That gives about $102,000 annually per person in this category. The median personal income is about $40,500 annually. So almost 40% of the entire economy goes to wages and other income of normal people alone. And yes, it is median (not average) so we are talking normal people wages, not CEO wages. According to wikipedia, about 17.3% of the GDP is government consumption and 17.2% is capital investment. That leaves little over 25% unaccounted for. This will include everything not accounted above. Charities, rich people wages, lottery winnings, … and of course, stock market gains and dividends.
I can’t account for more of the 25% right now (it is late, maybe someday), but even if it all went to the filthily rich along with a proportional part of government consumption and capital investment, then the normal people still get 61% of the economy. In the absolute worst case. Seems to me like lot of the “ultra-wealthy own most of america” is just misinformation.
Ok, lets do some math. The GDP of the US is $28 trillion.
You shouldn’t be using GDP for this, as GDP is a notoriously bad metric for understanding the flow of wealth. If I pay you $100 to wash my car and you pay me $100 to wash your car, the GDP of our actions is $200 even though both of our wealth is unchanged. GDP is simply a measure of how fast money is circulating.
You need to be looking at that actual allocation of the wealth, as the rich like to use a myriad of loopholes to obfuscate their acquisitions.
So you are explaining why the rich get less than what I calculated because GDP is overestimated while the way I calculated income of median people is solid.
Thanks for helping to make my argument.
The whole point is people are obsessed by the rich having ridiculous wealth on paper because of owning companies, but them owning companies does not take anything away from society. The factories produce goods for people and who receive the goods is determined by who buys the goods which is determined mainly by income, not wealth.
Or let me put it in different words: Let’s say you and I have the same wage across our lives. I save third of my paycheck for my entire life to build up savings. I only buy what I need. You spend yours on luxuries every month. After 40 years, is it unfair I have a lot of money and you don’t, since you spent it all? Should I be taxed more then you? We calculated what the income of the rich is above. The reason they have so much wealth is because instead of spending it on luxuries, they not only save it, but invest it. Investing does not give them sports car or better lifestyle. It helps produce more goods for the people that spend their money. It helps everyone become richer by increasing the overall economic output.
And yes, they get a share of this increased output as calculated above for helping make it by investing instead of spending their money on lavish parties, exotic trips or whatever you would spend that kind of money on.
So you are explaining why the rich get less than what I calculated
No. Not even close. I’m explaining that GDP is a terrible metric to look at this problem. You need to look at wealth holdings. And the rich own basically all wealth.
The whole point is people are obsessed by the rich having ridiculous wealth on paper because of owning companies, but them owning companies does not take anything away from society.
So this is wrong in two ways. The first bit with “wealth on paper” is wrong, because the rich own the wealth. Loads of it are tied up in stocks, sure, but it is still wealth. And they use it like we use other fiat currencies, so to them stocks are just as “real” as USD is “real”.
The second is that the economy is a finitely expandable pool that is itself finite. So it is ultimately a zero sum game.
There is a limited number of hot dogs that can be sold in a year. Every hot dog sold by vendor A is a hotdog that cannot be sold by vendor B. You can advertise and brainwash the population into buying more hotdogs, but there is a limit to how many people will buy hotdogs. Every stock that is owned by rich asshat A is a stock that cannot be owned by worker B.
So yes, the rich owning all the wealth directly takes away from the rest of us.
The factories produce goods for people and who receive the goods is determined by who buys the goods which is determined mainly by income, not wealth.
“Who is able to buy X” isn’t a relevant question to the problem of wealth inequality/hoarding.
Or let me put it in different words: Let’s say you and I have the same wage across our lives.
This analogy immediately falls apart, because I earn about $40/hr.
Bezos collects the equivalent of about $8,000,000/hr.
The only taxes we should have should be a land value tax, and a pollution/carbon tax.
It helps everyone become richer by increasing the overall economic output.
The stock market doesn’t increase economic output, not do I care if it does. Economic output should not be the goal. Sustainable human survival should be.
If sustainable survival is your only goal, go live in a forest. People can survive without factories.
As for your ridiculous hot dog analogy, are you saying as it is now, everyone in the world has as many hotdogs as they want? If not, there is obviously value in making more.
Also, I don’t care how many times you say GDP is not a good metric because it is not fitting your narrative. It is a good upper bound on how much value is produced. You can’t wish it away just because it proves you wrong.
If sustainable survival is your only goal, go live in a forest.
I’m saying it should be the goal of the economy instead of the current situation in which the only goal is everlasting, ever growing profit.
And I would go live in the woods if I could, but I can’t afford to do that.
As for your ridiculous hot dog analogy, are you saying as it is now, everyone in the world has as many hotdogs as they want? If not, there is obviously value in making more.
I am saying that there is a finite amount of hotdogs that can be sold per unit of time. Therefore it is a zero sum game. Therefore acquisition of wealth means taking away wealth from others.
Also, I don’t care how many times you say GDP is not a good metric because it is not fitting your narrative. It is a good upper bound on how much value is produced. You can’t wish it away just because it proves you wrong.
It doesn’t prove me wrong. You’ve seen the above graph. You know the wealth is allocated in the hands of the rich. The GDP is irrelevant.
I’ve explained it to you twice now, and if it is beyond your graph then that’s on you.
Production should be run by the workers via a democratically run and accountable worker-government.
The government owning companies is not a bad thing. The US Postal Service and Fire Department are state-run and operated, and are highly popular. Why do you think a profit-motive is necessary when it’s the source of enshittification?
Wealth is there to motivate people to do something more than dwell and ruminate. If there was a wealth cap or maximum amount of money you can have no one would have motivation to do all these things we have like companies and such.
It’s not so black and white.
Currently probably the best bleeding edge system is doughnut economy where power of capitalism is constrained to non essentials from one side and planet health from another. www.kateraworth.com/doughnut/
Netherlands if I remember correctly currently is doing something in that direction and generally eu capitalism is somewhat constrained
Cap it at 20m. That’s a great fucking motivation to me. That’s a couple nice houses, a boat or two, several over the top cars, and pretty much any possession you can think of within reason. You could lead a very comfortable life on 20m net worth.
Humanity does not need private jets, mega yachts, mega mansions, etc.
There would be no personal motivation to siphon every penny away from your employees if you’re at your wealth cap. Employees who should be sharing in the company’s success in meaningful terms.
There would be no motivation for enshitification to reduce costs to the bare minimum for every last penny.
Etc.
The extreme greed that “motivates innovation” is such a crock. Yeah, obscene wealth does fuel venture capitalism atm, but those investors are also who twist the knife on CEOs to make short term decisions that end up destroying companies at the detriment of employees and customers alike.
CEOs aren’t in it for the long haul. Investors aren’t in it for the long haul. It’s all rape and pillage under the current system.
But if you cap it there is no reason to improve things, make them more efficient etc. The world runs on greed, ambition and it’s very important for progress as long as it can be directed and constrained in a sensible manner.
Regulations need to constrain capitalism and make sure it stays within reasonable boundaries where it is a power of building things and not destructive.
Wealthy serve as a goal to the ambitious and as long as wealth can not be inherited (that needs to change) and everyone has equal opportunity to become one, it is fair.
Assuming you’re a working class person, are you motivated by the hope of becoming a billionaire? Is that what drives you to go to work or take a chance at starting a business of your own?
If that dream was capped at 20m, would that stop you from trying to be successful? Is there anything in the world that you covet that exceeds 20m? Or even 10m.
I won’t wait for your personal answer. I don’t think it’d far fetched to say that for most people, their answer would be that it doesn’t make a difference. Achieving 20m would be a dream and give them a far more comfortable life than they have now.
And if they reached that 20m, they’d either retire and give the next generation a chance at the reins, or keep working but necessarily focus more on their employee/customer happiness, because there’s no reason to be exceedingly greedy except as a ego scoreboard thing.
That doesn’t stop innovation, it just means that more will innovate and thrive because fewer will clutch onto their throne and kick others down.
And if they reached that 20m, they’d either retire and give the next generation a chance at the reins, or keep working but necessarily focus more on their employee/customer happiness, because there’s no reason to be exceedingly greedy except as a ego scoreboard thing.
I’ll end the conversation here though, it’s obvious you’re not interested in intelligent discourse if you’re cherrypicking like that. Enjoy your billionaire idolatry while you file your w-2
If it’s such great motivation, what is stopping you now? The potential to earn that is there for you, right now but from what I gather you’re not doing it. Why would you have MORE motivation to make 20M if it was capped but have no motivation in the current environment?
I think you’re missing the point. I am asserting that 20m cap or capless, people including myself are motivated to try to be monetarily successful. The American dream is everyone is a future million/billionaire.
The current wealth distribution and lobbying only serves to make the rich richer and kick the ladder out from behind them.
A wealth cap changes that. It means there’s little point for the rich to keep clutching to power for more money, because you can’t keep it. But the goal of 20m is still very appetizing to the working class, where they could retire in comfort for the rest of their lives.
In April 2020, during the first wave of COVID-19, Amsterdam’s city government announced it would recover from the crisis, and avoid future ones, by embracing the theory of “doughnut economics.”
Amsterdam’s ambition is to bring all 872,000 residents inside the doughnut, ensuring everyone has access to a good quality of life, but without putting more pressure on the planet than is sustainable. Guided by Raworth’s organization, the Doughnut Economics Action Lab (DEAL), the city is introducing massive infrastructure projects, employment schemes and new policies for government contracts to that end. Meanwhile, some 400 local people and organizations have set up a network called the Amsterdam Doughnut Coalition—managed by Drouin— to run their own programs at a grassroots level.
$100m can even be fine. Let them have their Bugatti and mansion. There’s big toys aplenty to have them motivated without being complacent and not milking the rest of the world for all it’s worth.
Even capping it at 1 billion would do wonders. That means, for example, Elon would have to pay more than 200 billions to the government. Imagine what we could do with 200 billions.
And yes, they could split it with family and friends, but I find it hard to believe he (or anyone actually) knows 200 people he can trust with 1 billion each.
Hell, I’d be okay with 100 million total in both liquid and non-liquid assets as a wealth cap. We could even tie it to inflation, so long as we also tie the minimum wage to inflation (let’s say, starting at $30/hr federally, then increasing as needed locally).
Seriously… At SCaLE this year I saw people from various distro booths taking breaks and visiting other distro booths. Each time they looked genuinely interested and excited about what the other distro was doing.
I kinda feel like there’s very little overlap between distro fans and distro developers. Probably because distro devs tend to know all the dirty secrets of their distro.
You go on Reddit or wherever and it’s all “distro X is evil, use distro Y instead,” “No, Y is terrible! Use Z!” And then you sit at a table with a SuSE developer, a Fedora developer and an Ubuntu developer and the conversation is all “so how are you guys dealing with this issue?” “Oh, I think we came up with a great solution, I’ll share the patch set with you!” “Wonderful, thanks! By the way I opened up a merge request on your stuff because we figured out how to fix that namespaces issue.”
Someone desperately wanted to make a negative headline…
So what? I don’t know the artist, her fans probably where there to hear that song, terrorists don’t deserve to keep influencing the future happiness of people with their actions…
pretty sure goth died to EDM in the 90's. it was a weird transition, too. from somber to dark rave, and it happened really fast. probably in large part due to the matrix movies and hot topic.
Reznor does make movie soundtracks and instrumental albums (Ghosts I-VI) but he still also makes “typical” Nine Inch Nails music. Here’s some examples from 2016-2018: www.youtube.com/watch?v=8JSSCKFgRFM
Sure, goth music is pretty varied now. If you look at the bands that play at Wave Gotik Treffen you’ll see a lot of variation: www.wave-gotik-treffen.de/english/past.php That just means it’s a vibrant scene, there are still traditional goth bands though.
Oh for sure, but musical genres are different for a reason. Much of what is claimed to be punk these days is simply “a different genre,” and it should be ok to be “a different genre than punk.” You can see it as gatekeeping all you like, but My Chemical Romance (commonly claimed to be punk in my area by the people who I am talking about, “those who don’t know what they are talking about”) is as punk as Buck Owens (nobody makes that claim, I use him to point out the ridiculousness of everything having to be specifically punk regardless of the actual genre.)
Just call yourselves something else if you are something else, just like you would with everything else. You don’t hear me claiming Discharge is the best goth band around, do you? I’m not proclaiming to be a goth because I like D-Beat am I? So why am I the asshole for expecting others to learn the differences in genres and subcultures? What, all heavy music and black clothing is the same to you? That’s subcultureist!
(Btw if it isn’t clear that this debate in which I am correct is as serious as pineapple on pizza, it ain’t that deep. I’m still right though, you can be free to have your own thing without claiming to be something you’re not, it’s ok, it’s actually better!)
Hell yeah me too (but if we’re gonna have this fight, Iggy started it! Lol). I don’t mean to say that there aren’t punks still, or good shit being made, but you gotta know where to find it and people who claim to be “punk” have to pass a litmus test to find out if you’re the same type of punk as eachother (which is to say, of newer stuff would you rather listen to Vivisected Numbskulls or My Chemical Romance (or whatever those kids are into these days, idk because it is also a decidedly different genre people just proclaim to be punk and then you get called a gatekeeper because you recognize the difference in musical genres, fuck it I guess Buck Owens is punk too then.)
Oh I know it isn’t “dead dead,” good shit is still being made, lot of it actually, and there’s some good gothy music being made too albeit more synthy stuff, but they’ve been bastardized from their original forms to the point of unrecognizability in some circumstances to the degree where people’s favorite “punk band” is My Chemical Aromas or some such nonsense.
I just personally think that rather than attach themselves poorly to an already developed subgenere/subculture, they should just call themselves their own thing. It’d be like if I said I’m a country star but all I do is spoken word, “no, you’re a spoken word star, and that is fantastic, but country music is one thing and you are another.”
Frankly imo, that is the charitable way to view it too, because otherwise I’d view them to be like the “punk” version of dudes in cowboy gear and silverados on their way to their accounting jobs.
My area has a bit going on too, and kicking out nazi punks is par for the course, but that isn’t what I’m talking about. I’m talking about people who’s “favorite punk band” is like my chemical romance or a day to remember, which are not punk.
Dated one. Got stuck with them during the pandemic matter of fact. They most certainly do call themselves goth, because thick makeup in the style of “internet” and a pair of fishnets makes one goth now.
Nah, real goths are still around. We still listen to all the classics, and most of those genres are still alive and have newer albums. Some of the newish (or thriving) goth genres are: minimal synth, witch house, neofolk, dark jazz, dark trap, deathstep, electropunk/synth punk. We’re just lurking in the shadows, which is kinda an obvious place for us to be when you think about it 😉
There’s an insta model who’s full Goth/Satan to the point of having a Leviathan Cross on her insanely large fake tits and I had to at least shrug that she’s doing the full “Goth Bimbo” aesthetic… Like, full Satan Worship and evening full on committing sins of Lust and Pride at the same time.
It really needs to be everything - posts, comments, subscriptions, upvotes/downvotes, blocks, and mod status. It needs to be such that signing in to your account on the new instance is the same as signing into on the old one. It should be so seamless that you can just switch instances just to try out a new one and switch back again if it isn’t for you.
Indexes are unique to each instance. Post ID, Comment ID, Vote ID. There’s no way to correlate this information between two instances other than to do a full text match, post by post, comment by comment, vote by vote, to determine if what is being imported already exists on the new instance or is “new”.
Even if you go that route, then there’s the quandaries that follow… if you import what is effectively a “new” post to your new instance, do the comments (which aren’t yours) come along, or do you simply end up importing your post with no interaction history.
Then there is identity. You most likely have a non-local identity on your new server, as a result of federation, how does the new instance know that you are who you say you are, givimg you ownership of any of that existing content as it binds it to your, now, local identity?
As long as they’re using UUIDs where they should be the possibility of a collision is literally so low as to be impossible, but that relies on all the pieces of software using good principles.
Message activity contains a UUID but the activity table is considered disposable and is purged regularly. Once the message is broken down into its parts and stored the universal identifier is lost. All correlation is local.
I kinda just want to keep my cake day. I signed up on my first account on my IRL birthday, but then I created my own instance some time later and created an account on that one. I just thought it was fun to have it on my birthday. :(
This is a perfect example of how engineers/developers can fret over all sorts of technical challenges and compromises while completely missing the one thing a user wants most because it’s simple and sentimental and “human” which also turns out to be comparatively trivial to implement.
Indexes are unique to each instance. Post ID, Comment ID, Vote ID. There’s no way to correlate this information between two instances other than to do a full text match, post by post, comment by comment
I hope there will be a solution for this. It’s so unpractical. The only sane way to link to posts on other instances seems to be to cross-post them.
If you just share a link to a specific post or comment … people can see it, but unless they happen to have an account on that instance, they cannot interact with it. To do so, you have to search for it, and the search is not reliable.
Why can’t post or comment IDs be generated hashes, and each instance uses the same algorithm?
Someone else did bring up the point that the canonical URL is stored, so that does make correlation a bit easier.
Doesn’t solve the concerns you’ve brought forth. For example, the “I don’t have an account here”. A local instance can correlate a local post to a remote post, being able to provide a “open on original instance” link but it can’t be done the opposite direction, which would relieve this problem.
As for hashing, it too certain what that would gain but at some point there was obviously a decision not to correlate by the message UUID (which would accomplish the same thing). Since I wasn’t in the room can’t say why.
Posts and comments have a canonical URL (i.e. the original submission's URL that's linked to via the Fediverse pentagram), so that can be used as a foreign key when comparing.
I think identify claiming would need to have been designed into the original spec with something like a public/private key for account ownership to allow moving of related data in a safe way, or e.g. editing a post from a different instance than originally posted it.
Like I said, I was just running of the top of my head.
While it’s true they have canonical URLs, there still remains that there’s no apparent method for integrity checks. No way to validate a correlation between the “new user” and the post or comment that can prevent abuse.
Yeah, I wasn't arguing, just thinking out loud too. I think the whole decentralised aspect of the fediverse means that ownership has to have a cryptographic answer because there's no central source of truth that everyone can agree on.
I think moving accounts is a little easier than you think, apart from who gets to say that something should move. It'd be better to have a "pull" than something like the "push" solution that currently exists on Mastodon - there you can forward an account to a new place, as long as the old instance exists and cooperates (big ifs).
I'm mostly thinking about moving accounts (+ communities) in the case of when an instance suddenly vanishes.
Agreed. It really comes down to what is enough to satisfy most people. Exporting subscriptions is an easy implementation. Saved/favorited posts, slightly less easy but very achievable. Each of these could be safely done as a user initiated export/import.
Once you start getting into any type of ownership type work, votes, comments, etc. then it’s starts getting hairy due to integrity concerns. How do we trust that this activity actually belongs to the person claiming it.
Sounds like using GUID instead of id’s would help, but that is not something you just switch, and there’s probably a bit more glue needed for it to be feasible.
The idea of AI automated job interviews sickens me. How little of a fuck do you have to give about applicants that you can't even be bothered to have even a single person interview them??
That’s more like an excuse to keep those stupid 5, 6, and even more interview round processes. Basically making you work an entire week for free in exchange of a chance of getting an offer. Make the first or second rounds with AI and only bother after that.
But god forbid the applicant didn’t spend hours researching every little detail about a company, writing a perfect letter with information that could have just been bullet points and being able to explain exactly why they absolutely love the company and why it’s been their dream to work there since they were a child. Or even worse: Use AI to write the application.
Cover letters fucking make me hateful. I love generating AI cover letters and sending them. Fuck your cover letters in a market where you need to send 100 applications to get 10 bites
Applicants are expected to dedicated hours of their time to writing their application and performing background research - both of which are becoming increasingly more tedious over time - so the least a company could bloody do is show some basic respect by paying an actual human being to come interview you!
I looked for the recipe this comment was made in, and in the comments, the original author of the recipe mentions replacing whole or part of the oil with applesauce which might explain why.
Yep. Applesauce can be used as a replacement for oil in cakes and some quick breads. I’ve done it on the rare occasion I’ve been short of cooking oil for a cake. Don’t think I’ve ever swapped it in for all the oil though. It does give a bit different texture and flavor, I find it kind of pleasant myself. And youy will need to probably bake the cake for a bit longer too. YMMV based on your oven.
I personally would not use applesauce to fry in though. But perhaps Flying Squid’s mother should experiment for use and they can report back to us on the results.
It’s better as a replacement for eggs. I say this as a avid vegan baker, oil is oil. Results may vary, but there is no good substitute. And coconut oil is the best kind, IMHO. Worth the extra couple bucks.
I did not want to accidentally send more comments to the person in the screenshots way by posting a link. It was a recipe for brownies. Here is the comment made by the author:
lemmy.world
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