Raptors says a trip to the white house is a "hard no"

[poido123]

sorry man that was just the ol' nickname. I haven't really been paying attention to elections but I watched a lot of playoff games saw my team win 16 games this postseason in fact.




All of these games are taking a toll I'm glad that there's an offseason it's good to have a break from all this winning.

Can

[red1]

Can’t hate a Toronto championship ��

The parties in that city would of been insane. Unfortunately for my bulls, we are too busy enjoying mediocrity and celebrating drafts ��

absolutely. definitely insane.




bulls already have 6 rings it's good to share. just not with the knicks. dolan can sit in the corner alone.

[poido123]

absolutely. definitely insane.




bulls already have 6 rings it's good to share. just not with the knicks. dolan can sit in the corner alone.

If we didn

[red1]

If we didn’t luck into Jordan, our ownership would rival that of Dolan.

damn. magic got the hiv but dolan is the real aids/cancer.

[Hawker]

Who is entitled to the benefits of the land then? What makes it yours and not mine?

"Natural Rights" only exist so far as they are enforced.

Obvious problems with the huge wealth disparities:

1. Concentrated wealth allows a few very wealthy people to control the government through corruption. The US government gives tax breaks and subsidies equal to the total amount of outstanding student debt in the US....EVERY YEAR.

2. Monopolies and massive private equity firms decrease competition in the economy. Competition to provide cheaper and higher quality goods is the only aspect of capitalism that benefits people who don't own capital resources.

3. Goods and services are produced in accordance with supply and demand. The concept of "consumer sovereignty" is defined as "the situation in an economy where the desires and needs of consumers control the output of producers". However, these desires only impact what is produced in relation to the purchasing power of different classes of consumers. Put simply, when a small amount of people control a huge amount of wealth, the economy will produce goods and services aimed at those wealthy people. Less labor is dedicated to producing basketballs, more labor is dedicated to producing Bugattis.


We have the lowest tax rates in a hundred years of US history right now. The top tax rate was double this in the 70's. About 1.5x this in the 80's. It was 90% in the 40's and 50's. Back then about 60% of wealth went to workers, and 40% went to owners of capital. Now in America, 60% of income goes to owners and 40% goes to workers. An estimated 40% of all wealth is inherited, not earned. Workers haven't had a sustained increase in real wages since the early 80's. This is all bad.

Everyone benefits from the resources of the land. Consumers and owners. Owners of the private property benefit by offering something to consumers. This is basic capitalism.

Income has increased for all workers adjusted for inflation since the 80s. That is just wrong.

As far as your three points, the rich want more regulations so they can keep the wealth and put up barriers in place for competition. You can see the same thing with Amazon, google, facebook right now - they are all asking for regulations so they can own the competition. Pressure was put on Amazon to go to $15/hr min wage, and now they are lobbying the government to do the same. Not because they really believe it but to stifle competition.

BTW - we aint short on producing basketballs dude. There is always a market for little stuff like that.

And as a % of GDP, federal tax receipts has been flat since the 50s.



While those tax rates were extremely high, there were tons of tax cuts built into them (by the rich in cooperation with big government) and they were cut significantly by Reagan who at the same time got rid of those breaks.

[Hawker]

The closest you've been to academia is probably watching Jordan Peterson videos on YouTube.

My brother just got his PhD.

Do you recall the hoax academic studies?

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full...X.2018.1475346

An article of rape culture and queer performativity in urban dog parks got approved as a legitimate academic article.

[DoctorP]

I think you guys have me mistaken for some big government lib, and I'm not.

Governments are institutions who we allow to have a monopoly on legitimate violence. That's their purpose.

Violence is at the heart of ownership. What stops your land from being my land is the threat of violence. Without a government to enforce a set of laws, backed up by violence, ownership beyond personal property is impossible.

As long as governments exist, they will be enforcing laws with violence. If there must be ownership of resources, then there must be government. The question is, who the government represents.

Right now in America our government represents the interests of the rich, and wants to make it easier for them to gain control over more resources. I'd rather a government that shifted the balance back to the masses. Full-time workers in a lot of other countries earn more money than American workers.

What would that look like? Vastly increasing taxes on annual income over a few million dollars. Increasing the minimum wage. Enforcing anti-trust laws (already on the books) to break up big banks, big telecom companies, Disney etc etc...

I see you have read some Karl Marx, right?

[ralph_i_el]

I see you have read some Karl Marx, right?

Back in school. I try to read a lot of different perspectives though. I'm currently finishing up Fukyama's "The Origins of Political Order", which I definitely recommend. He's definitely not a Marxist, but he's the one neo-con who has actually realized their failures (he was a major player in the Bush administration).

[DoctorP]

Back in school. I try to read a lot of different perspectives though. I'm currently finishing up Fukyama's "The Origins of Political Order", which I definitely recommend. He's definitely not a Marxist, but he's the one neo-con who has actually realized their failures (he was a major player in the Bush administration).

Vaguely heard of him. I am an existentialist thinker and I dove into some Sartre who persuaded me to read Marx. Just finished Marx preamble to the Communist Manifesto.

Thanks for the recommendation.

[warriorfan]

Damn. Hawker getting straight shit on....Hey... at least his brother has a PHD though.



Btw, impressive stuff Ralph

[MaxPlayer]

Vaguely heard of him. I am an existentialist thinker and I dove into some Sartre who persuaded me to read Marx. Just finished Marx preamble to the Communist Manifesto.

Thanks for the recommendation.

Marx just really loses me with the way that he just unquestioningly assumes that workers and owners of capital necessarily cannot co-exist peacefully and/or for mutual benefit. Much like Malthus, it just seems like such an unjustifiably pessimistic view, even more so today in light of the continuing incredible gains in global wealth and standards of living.

[DoctorP]

Marx just really loses me with the way that he just unquestioningly assumes that workers and owners of capital necessarily cannot co-exist peacefully and/or for mutual benefit. Much like Malthus, it just seems like such an unjustifiably pessimistic view, even more so today in light of the continuing incredible gains in global wealth and standards of living.

Marx also bothers me because his views are not only pessimistic, but so machine-like and systematic that he basically rejects the history of individuals outside of the system. To him savages and sub-proletariats are outside of the realm of history. That bothers me.

[DoctorP]

Things have progressed technologically from Marx time, especially in Archaeology. We know there is more to history than industrial civilization.

Marx work is outdated. That's where Sartre comes in, and perhaps now Chomsky.


But I could be wrong.

[ralph_i_el]

Things have progressed technologically from Marx time, especially in Archaeology. We know there is more to history than industrial civilization.

Marx work is outdated. That's where Sartre comes in, and perhaps now Chomsky.


But I could be wrong.

No, you are exactly right. Marx is not the be-all-end-all. He inspired a lot of very insightful people though with his materialist framework.

My wife is an archaeologist!

[ralph_i_el]

My brother just got his PhD.

Do you recall the hoax academic studies?

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full...X.2018.1475346

An article of rape culture and queer performativity in urban dog parks got approved as a legitimate academic article.

Someone made a hoax paper, and to you this discredits hundreds of years of academics?

I would love for you to apply this same standard of skepticism to institutions like the US military and State Department.