Donald Trump

First.Aspect

MattFalle said:

dennisn said:

First.Aspect said:

MattFalle said:

essentially it doesn't matter what trump says re vaccines as his base are as thick as pigshit and will believe what they want no matter who says what but more whether the Dems can get Manchin on side and Biden sticks to electoral promises and doesn't lose votes in finely balanced Houses ....

......... a good deal of muddle class america is willing to overlook all of his obvious flaws in the interests of their personal taxation.

No sh*t.... Who likes high taxes?

depends what you get for them - don't complain about crappublic services and roads when ypu pay low taxes.

we pay all our tax and don't mind because we kinda give ashit about schools, hospitals, etc.

anyhow, we're not talking about taxing low/middle earners here, we're talking about taxing the rich and the super rich which, for some utterly unknown reason, the middle and lower earners seem to be throwing a hissy fit about.

Low tax in the US is deceptive, when you have to find $100k+ for college fees or when you hit the upper limit of the health insurance coverage on a given condition. Just a case of when you pay it.

MattFalle

First.Aspect said:

MattFalle said:

dennisn said:

First.Aspect said:

MattFalle said:

essentially it doesn't matter what trump says re vaccines as his base are as thick as pigshit and will believe what they want no matter who says what but more whether the Dems can get Manchin on side and Biden sticks to electoral promises and doesn't lose votes in finely balanced Houses ....

......... a good deal of muddle class america is willing to overlook all of his obvious flaws in the interests of their personal taxation.

No sh*t.... Who likes high taxes?

depends what you get for them - don't complain about crappublic services and roads when ypu pay low taxes.

we pay all our tax and don't mind because we kinda give ashit about schools, hospitals, etc.

anyhow, we're not talking about taxing low/middle earners here, we're talking about taxing the rich and the super rich which, for some utterly unknown reason, the middle and lower earners seem to be throwing a hissy fit about.

Low tax in the US is deceptive, when you have to find $100k+ for college fees or when you hit the upper limit of the health insurance coverage on a given condition. Just a case of when you pay it.

the average US'ian gets horribly, horribly screwed for everything but they seem determined to protect the horribly rich. I honestly don't understand it.

Exactly as you say: healthcare, college fees, teachers paying for school supplies, rubbish outdated infrastructure, etc etc

but at least they guns and a massive, massive hugely inefficient military. ffs.

pblakeney

rick_chasey said:

pblakeney said:

dennisn said:

First.Aspect said:

MattFalle said:

essentially it doesn't matter what trump says re vaccines as his base are as thick as pigshit and will believe what they want no matter who says what but more whether the Dems can get Manchin on side and Biden sticks to electoral promises and doesn't lose votes in finely balanced Houses ....

......... a good deal of muddle class america is willing to overlook all of his obvious flaws in the interests of their personal taxation.

No sh*t.... Who likes high taxes?

The Nordics.
Who also happen to rate highest in the "Who's happiest" and "Quality of life" ratings.

Thaaank yooooou oil.

The real trick they worked out was that sharing out the massive money windfall would make everyone happy.

That was a massive windfall used sensibly, unlike other countries. They still have high taxes, which was more to the point, and Nordics include more than Norway.

MattFalle

Norway - 1st place
Iceland - 4th place
Sweden - 7th place
Denmark - 10th place
Finland - 11th place
UK - 13th place

First.Aspect

MattFalle said:

Norway - 1st place
Iceland - 4th place
Sweden - 7th place
Denmark - 10th place
Finland - 11th place
UK - 13th place

Is that Eurovision?

I didn't think we did that well.

MattFalle

First.Aspect said:

MattFalle said:

Norway - 1st place
Iceland - 4th place
Sweden - 7th place
Denmark - 10th place
Finland - 11th place
UK - 13th place

Is that Eurovision?

I didn't think we did that well.

No - best places in the world to live.

you are right, you came last 'cos youshit.

we won it, much like we won the Euros 'cos you your lot isshit.

rjsterry

MattFalle said:

First.Aspect said:

MattFalle said:

Norway - 1st place
Iceland - 4th place
Sweden - 7th place
Denmark - 10th place
Finland - 11th place
UK - 13th place

Is that Eurovision?

I didn't think we did that well.

No - best places in the world to live.

you are right, you came last 'cos youshit.

we won it, much like we won the Euros 'cos you your lot isshit.

I think there are more than 13 countries.

MattFalle

rjsterry said:

MattFalle said:

First.Aspect said:

MattFalle said:

Norway - 1st place
Iceland - 4th place
Sweden - 7th place
Denmark - 10th place
Finland - 11th place
UK - 13th place

Is that Eurovision?

I didn't think we did that well.

No - best places in the world to live.

you are right, you came last 'cos youshit.

we won it, much like we won the Euros 'cos you your lot isshit.

I think there are more than 13 countries.

12 of which are ahead of the UK.

Britain. It ain't that great

kingstongraham

Where did Italy come in that list?

blazing_saddles

Obviously the weather isn't considered to be important to the quality of life.

rjsterry

MattFalle said:

rjsterry said:

MattFalle said:

First.Aspect said:

MattFalle said:

Norway - 1st place
Iceland - 4th place
Sweden - 7th place
Denmark - 10th place
Finland - 11th place
UK - 13th place

Is that Eurovision?

I didn't think we did that well.

No - best places in the world to live.

you are right, you came last 'cos youshit.

we won it, much like we won the Euros 'cos you your lot isshit.

I think there are more than 13 countries.

12 of which are ahead of the UK.

Britain. It ain't that great

If it's 13th behind a load of colder darker places, that's fine.

Jezyboy

kingstongraham said:

Where did Italy come in that list?

If it's the same list that I saw (which also had Britain in 13th...)

Miles back.

MattFalle

.

dennisn

TBH I'm kind of an Ayn Rand person in that I believe most of you wouldn't even have jobs if it weren't for the, so called, filthy rich. They are the ones with the brains, ideas, and willingness to work. Seems fine to me if they can reap the rewards of their hard work. Don't you want to reap the rewards(money) for whatever it is you do for a living? Also, FWIW YOU are the ones buying what the evil money grubbers are making. If your not willing or happy to pay for what you want, start your own business and make something useful that people will buy.

pblakeney

Gave up on tax and moved on to envy then.

orraloon

"We don't pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes"

Leona Helmsley, USAnian businesswoman, socialite and convicted tax evader.

First.Aspect

dennisn said:

TBH I'm kind of an Ayn Rand person in that I believe most of you wouldn't even have jobs if it weren't for the, so called, filthy rich. They are the ones with the brains, ideas, and willingness to work. Seems fine to me if they can reap the rewards of their hard work. Don't you want to reap the rewards(money) for whatever it is you do for a living? Also, FWIW YOU are the ones buying what the evil money grubbers are making. If your not willing or happy to pay for what you want, start your own business and make something useful that people will buy.

Do you believe in tithes, say a proportion of the value of potatoes you can grow on the field the lord allows you to use, or is some form of progressive taxation okay in your philosophy?

kingstongraham

dennisn said:

TBH I'm kind of an Ayn Rand person in that I believe most of you wouldn't even have jobs if it weren't for the, so called, filthy rich. They are the ones with the brains, ideas, and willingness to work. Seems fine to me if they can reap the rewards of their hard work. Don't you want to reap the rewards(money) for whatever it is you do for a living? Also, FWIW YOU are the ones buying what the evil money grubbers are making. If your not willing or happy to pay for what you want, start your own business and make something useful that people will buy.

They wouldn't have money if it weren't for the systems that taxes pay for.

Pross

Yet again a point goes floating well above Dennis's head.

rick_chasey

Ah Dennis, welcome to the British class system.

Britain has centuries of experience of the kind of “it matters who your parents are” social immobility that now encumbers even white America.

webboo

rick_chasey said:

Ah Dennis, welcome to the British class system.

Britain has centuries of experience of the kind of “it matters who your parents are” social immobility that now encumbers even white America.

Also the British don’t get their sense of humour removed at birth.

rick_chasey

webboo said:

rick_chasey said:

Ah Dennis, welcome to the British class system.

Britain has centuries of experience of the kind of “it matters who your parents are” social immobility that now encumbers even white America.

Also the British don’t get their sense of humour removed at birth.

Explains why mine was 😬

rick_chasey

https://twitter.com/chrismurphyct/status/1479150703671132162?s=21

Jezyboy

Blue lives matter?

rick_chasey

So a pessimistic take is that the Rep party has really abandoned its commitment to democracy.

A poll puts something like half of signed up members to the Rep party as willing to ditch democracy in return for having their own guy in charge (presumably off-the-back of the same poll finding that 2/3rds think the election was "stolen" by Biden)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/05/17/republicans-are-sprinting-away-democracy/

I would say that if you tolerate putsches, then you'll likely have more attempts. There are too many examples that show that if you don't crack down on them they're just treated as practice runs and the lack of enforcement emboldens the insurectionists.

Obviously this is fairly concerning given they are the biggest player in the world. No country is immune from anti-democratic tendencies, not even ones who spent vastly in blood and money to "spread" democracy around the world for almost a century.

First.Aspect

I think this is a good summary. There are lunatics in the Trump mold queuing up behind. Some will superficially appear less extreme.

However long it takes the US to move through this period of introversion, this misguided attempt to convince itself of its own superiority, it will emerge the other side to a world in which it is far less important. I think the irony is that this will bring forward the US's diminishment, not stave it off.

I'm no historian. When Britain's influence was waning, was there any analogous political and cultural trend?

MattFalle

dennisn said:

TBH I'm kind of an Ayn Rand person in that I believe most of you wouldn't even have jobs if it weren't for the, so called, filthy rich. They are the ones with the brains, ideas, and willingness to work. Seems fine to me if they can reap the rewards of their hard work. Don't you want to reap the rewards(money) for whatever it is you do for a living? Also, FWIW YOU are the ones buying what the evil money grubbers are making. If your not willing or happy to pay for what you want, start your own business and make something useful that people will buy.

brains, willingness to work?

you what?

taking advatage of historical family wealth, advatage of cheap labour, suppression of unions, suppression of fair pay, worker rights and so on?

Look closely at the current crop of billionaires - Gates, Musk, etc and you'll see you're talking shyte.

Dennis, you be living in cloud cuckoo land.

First.Aspect

MattFalle said:

dennisn said:

TBH I'm kind of an Ayn Rand person in that I believe most of you wouldn't even have jobs if it weren't for the, so called, filthy rich. They are the ones with the brains, ideas, and willingness to work. Seems fine to me if they can reap the rewards of their hard work. Don't you want to reap the rewards(money) for whatever it is you do for a living? Also, FWIW YOU are the ones buying what the evil money grubbers are making. If your not willing or happy to pay for what you want, start your own business and make something useful that people will buy.

brains, willingness to work?

you what?

taking advatage of historical family wealth, advatage of cheap labour, suppression of unions, suppression of fair pay, worker rights and so on?

Look closely at the current crop of billionaires - Gates, Musk, etc and you'll see you're talking shyte.

Dennis, you be living in cloud cuckoo land.

Dennis should try riding public transit on a cold winter night in any US city. If he's brave enough he should try talking to some of the people sleeping there.

rjsterry

First.Aspect said:

I think this is a good summary. There are lunatics in the Trump mold queuing up behind. Some will superficially appear less extreme.

However long it takes the US to move through this period of introversion, this misguided attempt to convince itself of its own superiority, it will emerge the other side to a world in which it is far less important. I think the irony is that this will bring forward the US's diminishment, not stave it off.

I'm no historian. When Britain's influence was waning, was there any analogous political and cultural trend?

Mosley?

There's a good chunk of the current Conservative party seemingly unaware that we don't have an empire any more.

MattFalle

First.Aspect said:

MattFalle said:

dennisn said:

TBH I'm kind of an Ayn Rand person in that I believe most of you wouldn't even have jobs if it weren't for the, so called, filthy rich. They are the ones with the brains, ideas, and willingness to work. Seems fine to me if they can reap the rewards of their hard work. Don't you want to reap the rewards(money) for whatever it is you do for a living? Also, FWIW YOU are the ones buying what the evil money grubbers are making. If your not willing or happy to pay for what you want, start your own business and make something useful that people will buy.

brains, willingness to work?

you what?

taking advatage of historical family wealth, advatage of cheap labour, suppression of unions, suppression of fair pay, worker rights and so on?

Look closely at the current crop of billionaires - Gates, Musk, etc and you'll see you're talking shyte.

Dennis, you be living in cloud cuckoo land.

Dennis should try riding public transit on a cold winter night in any US city. If he's brave enough he should try talking to some of the people sleeping there.

methinks Dennis hasn't ventured further than the golf club for a very, very long while.